Jobless Claims Jump to 965,000, Much Worse Than Expected
New weekly jobless claims jumped to 965,000 in the week that ended January 2, the Department of Labor said Wednesday.
That is far above expectations for 800,000 claims. The previous week’s estimate was revised down by 3,000 claims to 784,000.
Jobless claims can be volatile week to week so many economists prefer to look at the four-week average. This rose to 834,250, an increase of 18,250 from the previous week’s downwardly revised average.
Jobless claims—which are a proxy for layoffs—remain at extremely high levels. Prior to the pandemic, the highest level of claims was 695,000 hit in October of 1982. In March of 2009, at the depths of the financial crisis recession, jobless claims peaked at 665,000.
Even when the economy is creating a lot of demand for workers, many businesses will shed employees as they adjust to market conditions. But in a high-pressure labor market, those employees quickly find jobs and many never show up on the employment rolls. What appears to be happening now is that many workers who lose their jobs cannot quickly find replacement work and are forced to apply for benefits.
Claims hit a record 6.87 million for the week of March 27, more than ten times the previous record. Through spring and early summer, each subsequent week had seen claims decline. But in late July, the labor market appeared to stall and claims hovered around one million throughout August, a level so high it was never recorded before the pandemic struck. Claims moved down again in September and had made slow, if steady, progress until the election.
The election of Joe Biden and uncertainty about which party would control the Senate may be discouraging businesses from hiring. Biden has promised to make raising taxes on businesses a top priority for his administration, which will leave businesses with fewer funds for expanding payrolls or raising wages. As well, many businesses expect a flood of new regulations from the Biden administration, which is also a drag on the labor market.
New restrictions on businesses aimed at stemming the resurgence of coronavirus are likely contributing to layoffs now. Some states and cities have imposed new curfews and discouraged people from leaving home for non-essential reasons. Businesses faced with this suppressed demand will likely be forced to cut their payrolls to reflect lower sales.
Last week’s riot on Capitol Hill by supporters of President Donald Trump who were protesting the certification of the Electoral College vote for Joe Biden—as well as the fevered partisan reaction by Democrats determined to impeach the president for a second time and anti-Trump politicians and mainsteam media outlets who described the riot as a “coup” or an “insurrection”—may also have caused some employers to put hiring on hold.
The monthly jobs report on the Labor Department’s Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, showed that layoffs in the restaurant and hotel sector had hit a pre-pandemic record high.
Continuing claims, those made after the first filing for benefits, get reported with a week’s lag from initial claims. For the week ended January 2, continuing claims rose 199,000 to 5,271,000. The four-week average of continuing claims was 5,215,750, a decrease of 59,000 from the previous week.
In addition to regular state unemployment benefits, the federal government this spring launched two new programs aimed at delivering benefits to workers who ordinarily would not qualify, including gig workers, the self-employed, and those who remain jobless after regular unemployment benefits have expired. During the week ending December 26, states reported 7,442,888 continued weekly claims for Pandemic Unemployment Assistance benefits, the self-employment and gig worker benefit program. States reported 4,166,261 continued claims for Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation benefits, the program that extends unemployment benefits after the expiration under the regular programs.
The total number of continued weeks claimed for benefits in all programs for the week ending December 26 was 18,406,940, a decrease of 744,511 from the previous week. Much of this decrease is likely due to people coming off the unemployment rolls because they had hit the limit for how long they could receive benefits rather than being an indication of people finding work.
Ossoff: Feds Should Ensure Illegal Immigrants Receive Good Wages
Georgia Dem says ICE agents should be more concerned with labor laws than immigration status
MADISON, Ga.—Georgia Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff said that federal agents should be deployed to ensure that illegal immigrants receive good wages instead of enforcing federal immigration law.
A resident asked Ossoff how he would deal with people who were illegally brought to the United States as minors. The Democrat went on to chastise the "brutal conditions" facing workers on Georgia farms, arguing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents should be used not to detain illegal immigrants but rather to verify that such workers are treated well.
"When federal agents arrive at one of these farms, it should be to make sure people are being paid the minimum wage, working in humane conditions," Ossoff said at the Sunday event, adding that the U.S. should "show humanity and compassion for those who are part of our society but living in the shadows."
Ossoff's comments came months after the Democrat indicated his support for so-called sanctuary cities, stating that local law enforcement should not enforce federal immigration law because it undermines the "bonds of trust between local law enforcement and local communities." Ossoff has also praised House speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D., Calif.) $3 trillion HEROES Act, which includes unemployment payments for illegal immigrants.
Center for Immigration Studies policy director Jessica Vaughan told the Washington Free Beacon that Ossoff's "plan" reflects "little knowledge about illegal immigration or immigration enforcement."
"What I find troubling about that comment is that it indicates that [Ossoff] wants ICE to enforce wage and hour laws and other labor laws, which is not their job," Vaughan said. "That suggests that he does not want ICE to enforce immigration laws, and worksite enforcement is the type of immigration enforcement that does the most to deter illegal immigration. It's very effective, and we need to have more of it, not less of it."
The Ossoff campaign did not return a request for comment.
In addition to his past comments calling on local police to cease cooperating with federal agents against illegal immigration, Ossoff recently campaigned with former Obama administration official Julián Castro, who has faced criticism from fellow Democrats over his support for "open borders." Castro centered his failed presidential campaign on decriminalizing illegal border crossings and supported government-provided health insurance for illegal immigrants.
"This is tantamount to declaring publicly that we have open borders," former Obama DHS chief Jeh Johnson said of Castro's plan. "That is unworkable, unwise, and does not have the support of a majority of American people or the Congress."
Ossoff is running to unseat Republican senator David Perdue in Georgia's January 5 runoff election. Perdue has criticized the Democrat for supporting "lawless sanctuary cities."
New DHS Report Paints Picture of Biden’s Immigration Challenges
Lax immigration enforcement under Biden could bring about a new border crisis
New data from the Department of Homeland Security capture the changing face of illegal immigration, revealing dramatic shifts that will shape President-elect Joe Biden's hopes for comprehensive immigration reform.
The report from the Office of Immigration Statistics captures a transition as the share of lone adults, particularly from Mexico, declined, replaced by children and adults traveling with them from the "northern triangle" countries of Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. That change in turn has led to a dramatic decline in the number of individuals reported, as members of the latter group rely on more accommodative legal protections to remain in the country far longer than the former.
The report also shows that individuals who were not detained after apprehension are much more likely to still be in the country. That's a sign, acting deputy homeland security director Ken Cuccinelli wrote, that "catch and release" policies do not work.
That such policies, including an expansion of the use of "alternatives to detention," are top of the Biden immigration agenda augurs poorly for the incoming president. The challenges that changing migration patterns posed to the Obama and Trump administrations are unlikely to go away under Biden, teeing up yet another border crisis and ensuing political meltdown.
The report combines data from myriad sources to track the "lifecycle" of would-be entrants apprehended over the past five years at the southwestern border, providing information on the immigration status of some 3.5 million apprehensions. Its coverage bookends two major migrant crises: a surge of unaccompanied minors in 2014, and a much larger surge of both families and unaccompanied kids in late 2018 and early 2019.
These two crises are part of the changing face of migration. Whereas in the period of 2000 to 2004, 97 percent of all those apprehended were Mexicans—many of them lone adults seeking work—by 2019 that share had dropped to just 24 percent. By contrast, arrivals from the "northern triangle" countries rose from 44 percent of apprehensions in 2014 to 64 percent in 2019, amid the second crisis. Many of these individuals were children, often quite young, and adults traveling with them, claiming to be their family members.
Those demographic differences strongly determine what happens to an individual after he or she is apprehended. Single adults are quickly deported, with 78 percent of those apprehended over the preceding five years repatriated by Q2 2020. But family arrivals and children are not—just 32 percent of the latter, and only 11 percent of the former, had their cases resolved as of Q2 2020.
Such migration is likely to rise under Biden, who has promised to substantially reduce immigration enforcement and intends to pursue an amnesty, both of which could incentivize further arrivals. Data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection show that apprehensions at the border rose year-on-year in the immediate lead-up to and aftermath of Biden's election, which may indicate a rising tide of migrants eager to take advantage of a more lax immigration regime.
Those arrivals will enjoy the same preexisting immigration challenges that the Center for Immigration Studies' Andrew Arthur identified as driving the low number of deportations for families and children. "Loopholes" in federal immigration law incentivize the bringing of children from noncontiguous countries and delay almost indefinitely their immigration court process.
In particular, abuse of the asylum system, and of provisions which require the release from detention of minors and their guardians, results in large populations who arrive, are released, and never show up for subsequent immigration processing. According to the report, just 1 percent of those detained had unexecuted removal orders, while 55 percent of those released were still listed as unresolved.
The reason for this dynamic is not that those who arrive at the southwestern border have reasonable claims to be asylees: Just 14 percent of initial applicants are eventually granted asylum. Similarly, among those cases resolved, roughly 13.6 percent were granted some relief, while the rest were summarily deported.
In other words, the report indicates a large and persistent challenge to the U.S. immigration system, with an ever-growing pool of illegal entrants and an ever-expanding backlog of immigration court cases jamming up the process of legal immigration and the limited resources of DHS.
That dynamic is likely to continue, and even expand, under the Biden DHS. Biden's promised undoing of many of President Donald Trump's tougher enforcement tools, including the "Remain in Mexico" policy and the limitation of "reasonable fear" asylum claims, could exacerbate the inflow of people driven by the "loopholes" Arthur and Cuccinelli identify. So too could the deployment of "alternatives to detention," which Cuccinelli specifically singled out as problematic.
The Biden team, likely spooked by the surging apprehension numbers, has signaled that it will slow-roll the undoing of Trump's immigration agenda. But it has not promised any of the "targeted legislative fixes" endorsed by Cuccinelli in his letter, leaving in place the adverse incentives. That could lead to another humanitarian crisis at the southwestern border—a ticking time bomb Biden's team has evinced little interest in defusing.
Labor Department Cracks Down on Wage Undercutting by Foreign Workers
The Department of Labor will enact new measures to crack down on the undercutting of American wages by foreign workers.
The department announced in a Tuesday press release that it will set new wage rates for foreign workers to prevent potential abuses of the pay scale that undercut American wages. The reform is intended to safeguard job opportunities for American workers, according to the release.
The wage scale for paying foreign workers is too low, the department said, and undermines the wages and employment opportunities of U.S. workers.
"The Department also determined that the existing wage levels were artificially low and provided an opportunity for employers to hire and retain foreign workers at wages well below what their U.S. counterparts earn, creating an incentive to prefer foreign workers to U.S. workers," a Labor Department outline of the new regulation reads. "Existing wage levels [are] … at odds with the statutory scheme and [cause] downward pressure on the wages of the domestic workforce."
Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia said the new labor reforms will cut down on abuse in the foreign worker economy.
"The U.S. Department of Labor is taking these steps to strengthen wage protections, address abuses in visa programs, and protect American workers from being undercut by cheaper foreign labor," Scalia said.
Scalia will likely be succeeded by President-elect Joe Biden’s pick for labor secretary, Marty Walsh. As mayor of Boston, Walsh worked to create a more hospitable environment for foreign workers, passing legislation making Boston a sanctuary city for illegal immigration. In 2018, Walsh ignored pleas from ICE to crack down on his city’s immigration issues.
Scalia’s wage reforms will take effect 60 days after they are published in the Federal Register.
Chamber of Commerce to Work with Joe Biden on Expanding Legal Immigration as 18M Americans Jobless
Chamber of Commerce CEO Tom Donohue says the business group “will work cooperatively” with President-Elect Joe Biden to expand legal immigration levels to the United States in order to fill American jobs with foreign workers as 18 million Americans remain jobless.
At an annual event this week, Donohue outlined the group’s plans to work hand-in-hand with incoming Biden administration officials to expand legal immigration levels beyond their already historic rates, where more than 1.2 million green cards are allotted every year and 1.4 million foreign visa workers are admitted to take American jobs annually.
Donohue claimed that despite 18 million jobless Americans and another 6.2 million Americans who are underemployed — all of whom want full-time work — the U.S. still has “significant labor shortages” and prided himself on suing President Trump in order to continue importing foreign workers during a mass unemployment crisis. He said:
We also have to confront the reality that we have people without jobs and massive amounts of jobs without people. Even if we successfully employed every American willing and able to work, we would still face significant labor shortages—in construction, agriculture, health care, retail, manufacturing, and tech.
Donohue continued:
We fought vigorously and successfully against actions by the Trump administration to severely limit legal immigration, and we will work cooperatively with the Biden administration to reform our immigration system to meet the needs of our modern economy. [Emphasis added]
Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise … allowing the world’s most talented and industrious people to contribute to our economy drives growth, which in turn creates more jobs for Americans. This urgent priority should draw bipartisan support. [Emphasis added]
Building consensus on immigration reform, workforce development, and infrastructure investment this year will help accelerate the widespread recovery and deliver economic relief to the businesses and workers whose resilience has been put to the test. [Emphasis added]
That “consensus on immigration reform” is likely not only to include more legal immigration but also some form of an amnesty for illegal aliens living in the U.S. — both longtime priorities of corporate interests who see their profit margins grow when the cost of labor is crushed.
One particular study by the Center for Immigration Studies’ Steven Camarota revealed that for every one percent increase in the immigrant portion of an American workers’ occupation, Americans’ weekly wages are cut by perhaps 0.5 percent. This means the average native-born American worker today has his weekly wages reduced by potentially 8.75 percent, since more than 17 percent of the workforce is foreign-born.
As Breitbart News has reported, Biden has said he will “immediately” send an amnesty for illegal aliens to the U.S. Senate after taking office.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
Border Apprehensions Jump to Highest Level Since Year 2000
U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended nearly 208,000 migrants during the first quarter of Fiscal Year 2021 who illegally crossed the southwest border between ports of entry. This is the highest first-quarter figure since Fiscal Year 2000.
Border Patrol agents assigned to the nine southwest border sectors apprehended 207,968 migrants who illegally crossed the border during the first three months of this fiscal year, according to the Southwest Land Border Encounters report published by U.S. Customs and Border Protection Thursday evening. Historic reports indicate this is the largest first-quarter apprehension rate since the Clinton administration in FY2000.
“We’re already seeing the negative impacts of the proposed policy changes,” U.S. Customs and Border Protection Acting Commissioner Mark Morgan said in a press conference on January 5. The commissioner said the Mexican cartels and other human smugglers are spreading the word to migrants that our borders will be open to them.
“In this case, they’re correct,” Morgan said. “They’re right — it’s not just the perception.”
Apprehensions in December 2020 reached 70,630 — a jump from 32,853 in December 2019 (a 115 percent increase). This also marks the highest number of December apprehensions since FY2000.
During the first quarter of this fiscal year, Border Patrol agents expelled 183,434 of the 207,968 migrants under Title 42 Coronavirus protection protocols established by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, CBP reports indicate. Commissioner Morgan previously told Breitbart News that most of these expulsions occur within two hours of their arrest to prevent further exposure to Border Patrol agents, CBP employees, and the American public.
During the January 5 press conference, Morgan said these Q1 numbers would be another immigration crisis but for the policies put in place by the Trump Administration. Those policies include the Remain in Mexico Program and the Title 42 CDC programs that allow the near-immediate return to Mexico of apprehended migrants.
“You take that ability away and that 2,500 [arrivals] a day becomes a crisis overnight,” Morgan told reporters. “That’s what concerns us.”
The demographics of the migrants being apprehended are reported to be overwhelmingly single adults in Fiscal Year 2020 and the first quarter of FY21. This is a shift from FY19 when Family Unit Aliens and Unaccompanied Minors dominate the apprehension figures.
During the first quarter, agents apprehended 180,633 single adults (two-thirds of total apprehensions for the quarter). This represents a 178 percent increase when compared to the same period one year ago (65,085).
The Rio Grande Valley Sector continues to be the busiest of the nine southwest border sectors. This is followed by the Tucson and El Paso Sectors.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior news contributor for the Breitbart Texas-Border team. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s Sunday-morning talk show, What’s Your Point? Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, Parler @BobPrice, and Facebook.
Biden’s choice to lead DOJ Civil Rights is an open anti-white racist
On his Monday night show, in addition to commenting on the terrors of a new tech oligarchy in America, Tucker Carlson revealed the shocking truth about Kirsten Clarke, who is Joe Biden’s choice to lead the Department of Justice’s extremely powerful Civil Rights division. When Clarke was an undergraduate, she wrote such a vile anti-white screen that even the hard-left Harvard Crimson pushed back. In addition, she invited to campus a black speaker whose claim to fame was his Hitlerian anti-Semitism, and showered him with praise.
Clarke attending Harvard as an undergrad. Right there, of course, you can see just how oppressed this woman has been. Harvard! For God’s sake, what an insult to be forced to go that tawdry pile of bricks.
While at Harvard, Clarke became president of the Black Students Association. She thought it would be a good thing to explain her scientific views about race. These are the quotations that Tucker read on his show:
“Please use the following theories and observations to assist you in your search for truth regarding the genetic differences between Blacks and whites.
“One: Dr. Richard King reveals that at the core of the human brain is the ‘locus coeruleus,’ which is a structure that is Black, because it contains large amounts of neuro-melanin which is essential for its operation.
“Two: Black infants sit, stand, crawl and walk sooner than whites.
“Three: Carol Barnes notes that human mental processes are controlled by melanin–that same chemical which gives Blacks their superior physical and mental abilities. “
Four: Some scientists have revealed that most whites are unable to produce melanin because their pineal glands are often calcified or non-functioning. Pineal calcification rates with Africans are five to 15 percent, Asians 15 to 25 percent and Europeans 60 to 80 percent. This is the chemical basis for the cultural differences between Blacks and whites.
“Five: Melanin endows Blacks with greater mental, physical and spiritual abilities — something which cannot be measured based on Eurocentric standards.”
The funniest thing about this ignorant eugenicist screed, which is the mirror image of the effluvia that flowed from the KKK crowd at the height of Jim Crow, is that it’s apparent that Clarke herself is the product of mixed genetics. This photo suggests that her share of the evil Caucasian gene is somewhere around 50%:
Clarke wasn’t done. A short time after penning that garbage, she invited Tony Martin to the campus. That’s not Tony Martin, the 20th century Jewish singer with the romantic voice. No, it’s Tony Martin, the former Wellesley professor so famed for his vile anti-Semitism that he ended his life speaking to Holocaust Daniel groups. After his openly anti-Semitic speech at Harvard, Clarke praised him as “an intelligent, well-versed black intellectual who bases his information on indisputable fact.”
To give Clarke credit, she’s an equal opportunity hater. She also supports Ivy League schools discriminating against Asians. When Trump tried to stop this, she called the federal government’s efforts “madness.”
With Clarke on at the top of his list to lead the DOJ's Civil Rights division, no wonder Joe Biden felt comfortable announcing that his new administration will have race-based priorities:
Our priority will be Black, Latino, Asian, and Native American owned businesses, women-owned businesses, and finally having equal access to resources needed to reopen and rebuild.
While Clarke will probably quibble with giving Asians any advantage, we already know that, all federal laws to the contrary, she’ll be fine with a government that discriminates based on race.
The coming years aren’t going to be pretty. What we must hope is that American institutions are sufficiently strong that, when the American people manage to vote this crew out of office, there still remains a “nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men [read: people] are created equal.” (And you'll have to pardon me for quoting from that evil president who keeps receiving credit for freeing the slaves, when everyone knows the slaves freed themselves through their own agency.)
Wall Street Banks Freeze Political Donations After Capitol Hill Riots, Threaten Pro-Trump Politicians with Blacklisting
Wall Street is slamming the lid shut on the coffers of its corporate political action committees and threatening pro-Trump politicians on Capitol Hill with blacklisting.
Following a week in which major social media companies cut of President Donald Trump and began excluding some of his biggest advocates in the wake of the Capitol Hill riot, some of the nation’s largest financial institutions have announced that they are halting donations to their political action committees and considering permanently cutting off politicians accused of attempting to “overturn” the 2020 election.
J.P. Morgan Chase, the nation’s biggest bank by assets and market capitalization, said it is halting donations through its PAC for six months. Citigroup, the third-largest U.S. bank by assets, is reportedly pressing pause on political donations for the first quarter of 2020.
Goldman Sachs put the kibosh on donations pending a review of “how people acted during this period,” according to the New York Times, with the likely result that it will exclude Republican politicians who challenged the 2020 election results. Morgan Stanley also said it is stopping political contributions. It is considering withdrawing support for any politicians who voted against certifying Joe Biden’s electoral college win.
Bank of American and Wells Fargo are still considering their response but are likely to follow the path chosen by their competitors.
Typically, bank contributions to political action committees and politicians are considered by the Americana public some of the worst intersections of money and politics. The current situation has given the banks a rare opportunity to pose as do-gooders, even while implicitly pressuring politicians to win back their favor by adopting pro-Wall Street stances.
Corporate America is also freezing donations. So far, Marriott, Blue Cross Blue Shield, and Boston Scientific have said they will close their political purse strings.
The reaction to the Capitol Hill riot by supporters of President Trump stands in stark contrast to the response of banks and corporations to the Black Lives Matter anti-police riots and protests of last year. In response to those events, corporations pledged over a billion in support of Black Lives Matter and related causes.
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