Sam Zell on welfare incentives not to work

We've created a welfare society that is really discouraging people [from working].  When you can make as much or more by collecting unemployment insurance, and supplemental this and supplemental that, that's pretty dangerous stuff.  Clearly, we're having trouble getting everybody back into the workforce because the alternative is so attractive.

~ Sam Zell, "Sam Zell Buys Gold With Inflation ‘Reminiscent of the ‘70s’," Bloomberg interview, 2:25 mark, May 4, 2021

Lisa Beilfuss on the weak jobs report

There is a conundrum facing the U.S. economy: The very stimulus that has prompted a faster-than-expected recovery seems to be undermining it. 

That is one interpretation of the April jobs report released Friday, which showed employers added only a fraction of the jobs Wall Street expected and hired at the slowest pace since January.  Economists called the report puzzling; some said it should be ignored. 

~ Lisa Beilfuss, "Are We Overstimulated? April’s Weak Jobs Report Says Yes.," Barron's, May 8, 2021

Joe Biden takes credit for strong March jobs report

The first two months of our administration has seen more new jobs created than the first two months of any administration in history.  It's a reflection of two things going on here, a new economic strategy focused on building from the bottom to the middle up, and one that puts government on the side of working people.

~ President Joe Biden, "Vaccines, fiscal stimulus power U.S. employment; economy blooming," Reuters, April 2, 2021

(On Friday, it was reported that nonfarm payrolls surged by 916,000 jobs last month, the biggest gain since last August. Data for February was revised higher to show 468,000 jobs created instead of the previously reported 379,000. Still, employment remains 8.4 million jobs below its peak in February 2020.)