Tag: economy

As Inflation Takes Its Toll Americans Set to Get Smaller Social Security COLA in 2025

America’s seniors face a financial squeeze in 2025, with Social Security increases lagging behind rising costs of basics like food and housing.

This comes as Democrats spend billions on illegal immigrants, raising questions about budget priorities.

The Senior Citizens League (TSCL) projects a 2.63% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security in 2025. This translates to roughly $45 more per month for retirees.

“It’s not enough,” says Shannon Benton, TSCL’s executive director. “Seniors need more to cover rising prices on everyday items.”

Let’s look at the numbers:

– 2024 COLA: 3.2% (about $59 more per month)
– 93% of seniors say this increase didn’t cover their rising costs
– Many report monthly expenses rising by $185 in 2023

This gap is causing real problems.

Benton notes growing “food insecurity” among seniors. Many struggle to pay for basics like heating and cooling.

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More Than 10 Million Illegal Immigrants Under Joe Biden and the Real Employment Numbers Since He Took the White House

Far-left detractors are calling the Republican National Convention a Nazi convention because Republicans want to secure the border and deport illegal immigrants.

They also claim that Republicans are falsely demonizing illegal immigrants. However, protecting the border and enforcing the law is not a Nazi act; it is a normal function of government and part of the contract a government has with its citizenry.

As for demonization, the claims of illegal immigrants taking jobs and lowering wages are 100% true. To cover for the negative impact of immigration on jobs and wages, Biden lies about his job numbers, and Democrats and the mainstream press support his false claims.

As of June 2024,  approximately 6.8 million Americans were unemployed. In fiscal year 2023, the United States hit a record of 3.2 million encounters with illegal immigrants nationwide, including more than 2.4 million encounters at the Southwest border alone.

Over the past four fiscal years, from October 2019 to January 2024, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported more than 9.8 million border encounters across the country. This number represents approximately 2.93% of the current U.S. population, which is estimated to be around 334 million.

The Biden administration claims that unemployment is at the lowest level in fifty years. However, the unemployment rate is currently 4.1%, which is higher than during most of the Trump administration.

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Under Biden More Americans on Welfare and Fewer Americans Working

Socialists want higher taxes, increased reliance on government, and if possible, the complete elimination of the private sector.

They aim to transform the US into a country where, like much of the world, 1 in 5 youths are NEET—“not in employment, education, or training.” In the US, the percentage of those aged 16-24 qualifying as NEET has already reached 11.9%, and as welfare and unemployment benefits increase, so will this number.

They advocate for universal basic income (UBI), which is defined as “an unconditional cash payment given at regular intervals by the government to all residents, regardless of their earnings or employment status.” The country appears to be moving in this direction.

Under Biden, more people are on government assistance than at any time in US history, and the workforce participation rate is at the lowest point since 1978, when women became fully integrated into the workforce.

The low workforce participation rate is the result of liberal government unemployment and disability payments, as well as food and rent assistance, that make it more profitable to stay home and collect checks than to work.

Those who support welfare programs often downplay the amount of money recipients receive by citing a single program like SNAP, where the maximum benefit for a family of four is $931.

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Business Bankruptcies Jump 34 Percent in First Half of 2024

Bankruptcy filings by commercial entities grew by more than a third this year as businesses struggled under an environment of high costs and interest rates, according to the American Bankruptcy Institute (ABI).

A total of 3,016 commercial Chapter 11 bankruptcies were filed in the January–June period this year, up 34 percent from last year, said a July 3 ABI press release. Small-business filings rose by 61 percent. Total bankruptcy filings rose by 15 percent, with individual filings increasing by 15 percent.

“The continued increase in bankruptcy filings reflects the growing economic strain on businesses and households,” said ABI Executive Director Amy Quackenboss.

Michael Hunter, vice president of bankruptcy data provider Epiq AACER, said he expects an increase in individual filings ahead, “especially considering the large increase in commercial filings, consumer debt levels, high interest rates, and overall increased costs with relatively flat household income.”

Businesses have been battered in an environment of high inflation and high interest rates. The 12-month inflation rate has been hovering above 3 percent since June last year, although some analysts calculate that it maybe much higher than that. Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates within a range of 5.25–5.5 percent since July last year. This combination of higher expenses is putting pressure on businesses.

Despite such an environment, many executives remain positive about the future. A recent survey by professional services network Grant Thornton found that 58 percent of chief financial officers (CFOs) are optimistic about the U.S. economy, the highest in almost three years.

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Loss Of Economic Hope Kills, And That Is The Point

I was speaking to a young American recently, and I asked, what do you think forever wars, abortion, poisoned food, bad medical care, deadly vaccines, LGBT, transgender, fentanyl, destruction of the family, destruction of the food supply, all have in common?

The young person’s eyes widened as he replied, “Depopulation?”

“Bingo,” I said.

Add loss of economic hope to the killing machine.

Ever wonder why immigrants get ‘free everything’ yet, working class American get economically shafted?

Our psychotic overlords want a slave class, and they want to kill the American working class, who demands too high of a wage, and values that thing called freedom.

Economic depression is a formidable weapon, used to destroy hope, and foster suicide.

The ‘rich men north of Richmond’ really do hate you and want you dead.

To think of the level of evil this state of mind requires, to intentionally harm an entire class of humans, is sobering.

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Bidenomics: 27% of Americans Say They Skip Meals Due to Rising Cost of Food

27% of Americans say they skip meals due to the rising cost of food.
39% say they skip meals to make house payments.

Unusual Whales reported:

39% of Americans say they’ve skipped meals to make housing payments, per Clever Real Estate survey.

And among millennials, that figure rose to 44%. Among Baby Boomers, it was 20%.

Meanwhile, Housing affordability in the US is near all-time-lows, per $GS.

In November, nationwide, households need six-figure incomes to comfortably afford the typical home for sale, according to a report by Redfin.

Last month, the nation’s home buyers needed to make about $107,000 annually, up from about $74,000 a year earlier, to afford a median-priced home, according to Redfin. That’s an increase of nearly 46%.

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White House Promise to Lower Housing Costs Will End in Disaster

The Democrats claim that if Joe Biden were reelected, he would lower housing costs. However, there is no way for the government to reduce housing costs other than by getting out of the private housing market.

Most tools available to politicians for lowering housing costs involve a forced transfer of wealth from taxpayers to tax consumers.

These tools violate private property rights and exacerbate the problem by causing shortages or driving prices up.

The one policy that could effectively reduce housing prices—getting the government out of the housing market—would never be proposed by a Democrat administration.

Cutting regulation and taxes could reduce new house prices by approximately 23.8%. All other tools at their disposal would be destructive.

Rent control is often the first policy proposed to address housing issues, popular with voters wanting lower rents. However, it increases demand for rentals while decreasing supply. For example, the average US rental is $1,987 per month.

If someone offered you $100 a month to rent your spare bedroom, you’d refuse. But if they offered $10,000, you’d consider it. Thus, as rental prices rise, supply increases.

Conversely, if the government capped rent at $100, you wouldn’t rent out your spare bedroom, demonstrating that lower prices reduce supply.

Price caps on home sales are another proposed idea, but they generally gain no traction.

Aside from being a significant violation of private property laws, they would cause housing shortages and threaten the entire economy.

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Net Zero Will Boost the Economy? Pull the Other One

According to a recent Bloomberg article, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has urged the next Government to “put Net Zero at the heart of its economic plans” in order to achieve a “£57 billion economic boost by going green”. The article draws from a recent speech by CBI Chief Exec Rain Newton-Smith, in which she argued that “the next Government can’t be pro-growth and deliver for our people, planet and communities, without being pro-green”. This claim is in turn based on an analysis from CBI Economics, “which found that the U.K.’s Net Zero sector grew by 9% in 2023, a year when the U.K. economy fell into technical recession”.

If it is true, it is remarkable, surely, that a sector of the U.K. economy could grow at such a rate, despite headwinds. And it would indeed be an extremely foolish Government that ignored such a stark metric. But the CBI has form in making big statements about the direction that U.K. Governments should take, including most famously an injunction that Britain should ditch the pound and join the Eurozone – a policy position which Vote Leave later revealed likely to be related to the fact that “12% of the CBI’s retained income” came from the European Commission. “Since 2009, the CBI has received £7,031,797 from 140 taxpayer-funded public sector bodies in membership fees,” explained Vote Leave in 2015. Might funding sources also explain its arguments for a doubling down on Net Zero policy?

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California Reveals All Job Gains In 2023 Were Fake

In the past year we have discussed on multiple occasions that US labor market data has been repeatedly doctored to artificially appear better than it really is (see “Here Is The “Unexpected” Reason Why The Fed Will Rush To Cut Rates As Soon As Possible“, “Philadelphia Fed Admits US Payrolls Overstated By At Least 800,000” and “Here Comes The Job Shock: Philadelphia Fed Admits US Jobs “Overstated” By At Least 1.1 Million“), although thanks to a quirk of BLS data revision reporting, we won’t have definitive proof of just how ugly the real job market has been in recent years until some time in 2025, well into Trump’s second administration.

However, while the BLS will be able to maintain the facade of “strong job gains” lies into early 2025, the dismal reality has already made an appearance in America’s largest labor market.

According to the latest report published by the non-partisan California Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO) which is an agency of the California government, is overseen by the Joint Legislative Budget Committee of the California State Legislature, and performs and publishes extensive analyses of the state’s budget in addition to providing fiscal and policy advice to the California Legislature, contrary to prior reports of over substantial job gains in the deep blue state in 2023, the reality was far uglier.

In a report titled “Newest Early Jobs Revision Shows No Net Job Growth During 2023” we learn just that: the Early Revisions to state-level data flagged here previously, suggests that California actually lost jobs during the fourth quarter of last year. As the report details, “based on the most recent release of the early benchmarks, payroll jobs declined by 32,000 from September 2023 through December 2023. On the contrary, the preliminary monthly reports showed a solid increase in job growth (+117,000 jobs) at the time.”

This, according to the LAO, means that “with the fourth quarter revision, calendar year 2023 saw essentially no net job growth (+9,000 jobs overall).“

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Bidenomics and California’s $20 Minimum Wage Force San Francisco McDonald’s to Close After 30 Years

The McDonald’s at Stonestown Galleria in San Francisco announced it will shut its doors permanently.

After serving the community for more than three decades, this fast-food staple cites the crushing combination of high operational costs and recent legislative changes as the primary reasons for its closure.

The franchisee owner, Scott Rodrick, confirmed the closure in a statement to ABC7’s Dion Lim.

According to Rodrick, the closure is due to two main reasons: an uncompromising landlord who refused to negotiate a “sensible” rent, and the sky-high property taxes and mall fees, which were reportedly the highest paid for any single location within the company.

Rodrick also pointed out that conducting business in California had become increasingly challenging, especially with the state’s new minimum wage for fast-food workers. He described this as a “gut-wrenching” day for his family.

A notice posted on its door reads:

Dear McDonald’s Customer,

On June 23, 2024, this restaurant (255 Winston Drive at Stonestown Galleria) will be permanently closing. It has been a pleasure for my entire team and I to serve the 19th Avenue and Ingleside neighborhoods for more than 30 years. We are thankful to have been a part of your daily meal routine, either for an Egg McMuffin in the morning or a Happy Meal with the kids after an afternoon of shopping at Stonestown.

All of our valued team members have been offered opportunities to continue working with my restaurant company at other nearby McDonald’s. We hope that you will continue to visit us at our other neighboring McDonald’s restaurants. Or you can have your favorite McDonald’s meal delivered to you via our digital app.

The fast food chain is the latest casualty of Bidenomics and Governor Newsom’s $20 minimum wage law.

Last week, one of Hollywood’s most iconic restaurants, Arby’s Roast Beef, closed after an impressive 55 years in business.

Gary Husch, Leviton’s son-in-law and the general manager of the establishment, echoed these sentiments. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Husch emphasized that the combined effects of inflation, the pandemic’s impact on foot traffic, and the draconian wage increase directly led to their difficult decision.

“With inflation, food costs have skyrocketed and the $20-an-hour minimum wage has been the final nail in the coffin,” Husch said.

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