CNBC’s Rick Santelli said this morning that the labor force participation rate is actually going backward, which he notes is not a good sign.
Santelli said the current rate was 62.8% and now it’s dropped back to 62.5%, noting the highest numbers we’ve had recently were way back in February of 2020 at 63%.
Watch:
CNBC's Rick Santelli on the December jobs report: "Labor force participation reverses … not a good sign" pic.twitter.com/9M0ERlIywy
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) January 5, 2024
As for the news this morning that Joe Biden will undoubtedly celebrate today in his remarks at 3:15, which is that “U.S. payrolls increased by 216,000 in December, much better than expected”, Peter Schiff makes a great point.
He notes that the last two months were sharply downgraded and that these ‘much better than expected’ payroll numbers will likely be sharply downgraded next month, just like almost all the rest from last year. In other words you can’t trust what the Biden administration is putting out:
Once again the media is focusing on Dec. non-farm payrolls beating estimates by 46K. However, the downward revisions to both Oct. and Nov. subtracted 71K from prior estimates. So the report is not a beat, it's another miss. Dec.'s number is likely to be revised lower next month!
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) January 5, 2024
10 of the last 11 job's reports have been revised sharply lower. What are the odds that's random? Try tossing a coin 11 times and see how often either heads or tails come up 10 times out of 11 tosses?
— Peter Schiff (@PeterSchiff) January 5, 2024
Yeah, what are the chances that Biden is screwing with the numbers to make it look better than it really is…
UPDATE: Santelli also mentioned the revisions, saying they are very disheartening to traders:
"The two-month [jobs report] revision, in a combined form, is -71,000," CNBC reports.
"Traders find these revisions very disheartening." pic.twitter.com/ibnoyBuZ7Q
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) January 5, 2024