Welcome to Friday! This is the Breitbart Business Digest weekly wrap, where we catch up on the economic and finance news of the seven days already lost to history.
This week was one in which mysteries were uncovered. The government got around to unveiling the truth about jobs in September and the mysterious resignation of yet another Fed official. Hiring by restaurants appeared to put to rest fears of a restaurant recession. Anchors aweigh!
Better Late Than Never: America’s Unexpected September Jobs Surprise
The Department of Labor released its once-and-future monthly report on what it calls the “employment situation.” Normally, the jobs report comes out on the first Friday of each month, and it details what businesses and households say about the labor market in the prior month. The latest report was long delayed because of the government shutdown so it came out on the third Thursday of the month and contained jobs data from September. By our count, this makes the report around six weeks and six days late.
Economists had forecast that employers added 50,000 workers to payrolls in September. Although that sounds paltry given the sizable monthly gains we’ve seen in recent years, this would have been a sign of healthy jobs growth. The so-called break-even rate of employment growth, the rate required to keep the labor market in balance, has fallen from a peak of around 250,000 in 2023 to about 30,000, according to Anton Cheremukhin, a principal research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
Why so low? Thanks to the Trump administration’s border policies, immigration is no longer adding to the U.S. population authorized to work. The Dallas Fed’s estimate is that net immigration this year will be a subtraction of about 300,000. In other words, flipping net immigration from the Biden tsunami inflow to the Trump outflow has dramatically lowered the pace of employment gains required to keep the labor market healthy. Also, an aging population means that more Americans are retiring out of the workforce, and replacing these retirees doesn’t require an expansion of payrolls.
As it turns out, however, we added far more jobs than required in September. The Department of Labor estimated that the economy added 119,000 jobs, including 97,000 jobs in the private sector. That’s more than twice the estimate and the latest sign that economists continue to underestimate the underlying strength of the economy.
American Households Sure Don’t Seem to Be “Buckling”
Despite headlines about consumers “buckling” under persistent inflation and depressed consumer sentiment, consumer facing jobs were particularly strong. Retail added 13,900, the third month of accelerating gains since May and the fastest pace of hiring since March. (The numbers are seasonally adjusted, so don’t write this off as hiring for early holiday shopping.) So far this year, retail trade has averaged a gain of 6,200, a dramatic change from the small monthly job loss seen on average in 2024. The total number of people working in retail trade has now returned to its February 2023 peak.
Leisure and hospitality added 47,000 jobs, the third consecutive month of accelerating job growth. Thirty-six thousand of those jobs were in bars and restaurants—”food services and drinking places” in the official jargon—a category that is particularly sensitive to changes in consumer behavior because of the discretionary nature of consumer spending on dining out. What’s more, restaurants and saloons hire when they are swamped with demand, so this growth implies a lot of diners filling tables and barstools.
This hiring contrasts with some negative reports we’ve heard from several corporate restaurant chains and big box stores. Chipotle’s quarterly results were disappointing and its CEO spoke of “persistent macroeconomic pressures.” Jack in the Box posted the worst sales quarter in years. Target sales slumped, although that’s become such a regular occurrence in recent years that it’s probably a bad idea to read it as a macroeconomic indicator.
On the other hand, Walmart sales were stronger than expected, and Restaurant Brands said that Burger King is doing well. The negative spin on this is that customers are trading down to “value” alternatives, but that’s not very persuasive. It may be a sign of some of the chains mismanaging their business, mispricing their goods by attempting to pass on costs—from higher wages and perhaps tariffs—to their customers. Customers are rejecting the higher prices not because they are “buckling,” but because competitors are offering more attractive alternatives.
Jerome Powell’s Dirty Fed
We learned on Saturday that the abrupt resignation of Federal Reserve Governor Adriana Kugler was not brought on by a change of career ambitions, a desire to return to teaching, or health concerns. A report from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics said that Kugler repeatedly violated the Fed’s trading rules in connection with purchases and sales of shares in close proximity to the central bank’s policy meetings, a period in which Fed officials are supposed to abstain from trading.
(Photo: iStock, Drew Angerer, Elijah Nouvelage, Al Drago/Getty Images; BNN)
Raphael Bostic, the president of the Atlanta Fed, a week ago announced his plans to retire at the end of his current term in February of next year. He was earlier found to have broken the central bank’s ethics rules and subsequently amended his financial disclosures. A 2024 review by the Fed’s internal watchdog said his trades risked looking as if they drew on confidential information, and he announced Wednesday that he will leave his post at the end of February.
In 2021, the heads of the Boston and Dallas Federal Reserve Banks both resigned amid the uproar over their trading activity. Questions were later raised about transactions by Richard H. Clarida, then the Fed’s vice chair, and he left the central bank in January 2022.
That’s at least five top officials at Jerome Powell’s Fed who have resigned under a cloud in connection with trading. This gives rise to serious questions about the quality of Powell’s leadership at the Fed. One trading transgression might suggest a bad apple, or even an honest mistake. Five begins to suggest something rather more systemic—an institution where officials operate as if they were above the rules. As far as we can tell, no other Fed chairman has presided over so many scandals.
Blackbeard’s End
This weekend is the 307th anniversary of Blackbeard’s last stand off the Carolina coast, when Britain solved a long-running “piracy externality” with the traditional policy mix of cannon fire and decapitation.
Edward Teach had innovated in his sector—branding, intimidation, flexible work arrangements—yet even in the eighteenth century there were limits to disruptive entrepreneurship. Eventually the state insists on its monopoly on violence and customs duties.
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