Dear Commons Community,

The US economy saw another 661,000 jobs added back in September and a modest improvement in the unemployment rate, as the recovery in the labor market continues at a stagnating rate.

The Labor Department released its September jobs report Friday morning. Here were the main metrics from the release, compared to consensus estimates compiled by Bloomberg.

• Change in non-farm payrolls: 661,000 vs. +859,000 expected
• Unemployment rate: 7.9% vs. 8.2% expected
• Average hourly earnings, month over month: 0.1% vs. 0.2% expected
• Average hourly earnings, year over year: 4.7% vs. 4.8% expected
• Labor force participation rate: 61.4% vs. 62.0% expected

The addition in non-farm payrolls marked the fifth straight month of net job gains. Still, the economy remains far from recuperating the jobs lost during the nadir of the pandemic period in March and April. Between those two months, employment fell by more than 22 million. Through August, just 10.6 million jobs were brought back.

Even as the US economy brings back some workers, an increasing number of Americans have found their layoffs to be permanent. Fewer than half of unemployed workers reported being on temporary layoff or furlough in August, representing a major slide from the near-80% in the category in April. The number of permanent job losers in August rose by 534,000 to 3.4 million, with this measure having increased by 2.1 million since February.

Other labor market indicators ahead of Friday’s report offered a similar take on the state of the labor market in September – that jobs are still coming back on net but at a slowing rate, and with an undercurrent of layoffs and job cuts still taking place.

ADP’s monthly report on private payrolls, while an imprecise indicator of the Labor Department’s report, showed 749,000 jobs added back in September, for a print better-than-expected but still a step down from the multi-millions of job gains reported in May and June. New weekly jobless claims in mid-September —around the time that the Labor Department’s monthly non-farm payrolls survey takes place — fell below 1 million in a sharp improvement from the millions of claims added per week in the spring.

But job cuts have still remained elevated. The Challenger Job Report out Thursday showed that job cuts announced by US employers were 186% higher in September this year than last year, and also accelerated slightly from August.

Policymakers have stressed that the slowing labor market recovery suggests more must be done out of Washington to provide support to those impacted by the pandemic and efforts meant to contain it. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in testimony before Congress earlier this month that the path ahead remains “highly uncertain,” and will “depend on keeping the virus under control, and on policy actions taken at all levels of government.”

Still, congressional lawmakers continue to struggle to reach a near-term agreement to unleash more fiscal stimulus into the economy. The lapse in enhanced federal unemployment insurance benefits in late July has chipped away at consumers’ spending power, threatening to slow further the economic recovery that began as business activity stirred back to life after closures. Other lapses have had a more direct impact on the labor market: The phase-out this week of federal aid aimed at keeping workers on payrolls has already led airlines to move ahead with tens of thousands of job cuts, based on announcements this week.

For the overall economy, these unemployment numbers are “highly uncertain” at best and troubling at worst.

Tony

President Trump leaving the White House on Friday for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Credit…Anna Moneymaker for The New York Times

Dear Commons Community,

President Trump was hospitalized last night  experiencing what aides called coughing, congestion and fever due to coronavirus.  His hospitalization throws the nation’s leadership into uncertainty and destabilizes his presidential campaign only 32 days before the election.

As reported by The New York Times, no one could say for sure when the president was infected, but the White House medical unit was focused on his ceremony in the Rose Garden last Saturday where he announced his nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett for the Supreme Court, an event where many officials and guests mingled without masks and without keeping distance.

Several guests and reporters who were present or traveled with the president on Air Force One later that evening tested positive on Friday, including Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, both Republicans; the Rev. John I. Jenkins, the president of University of Notre Dame; Kellyanne Conway, the president’s former counselor; and Michael D. Shear, a White House correspondent for The New York Times.

Dr. Sean P. Conley, the president’s physician, said in a statement that Mr. Trump, while still at the White House, received a single 8-gram dose of polyclonal antibody cocktail while also taking zinc, vitamin D, melatonin, aspirin and famotidine, a heartburn medicine. But Walter Reed has equipment that would allow better monitoring of his condition and a quick response if he has trouble breathing or experiences other symptoms.

Hours later, shortly before midnight, Dr. Conley said in a new statement that Mr. Trump was “doing very well” and “not requiring any supplemental oxygen,” but was put on remdesivir, an antiviral drug that has hastened the recovery of some coronavirus patients…

…Dr. David A. Nace, a geriatrics expert and the director of medical affairs at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s network of 35 nursing facilities, said in an interview yesterday that people who do not wear masks are exposed to higher concentrations of the virus, which can worsen the course of the disease.

Dear Commons Community,

The Associated Press reported a little while ago that President Donald Trump will spend a “few days” at a military hospital after contracting COVID-19. Trump “remains fatigued,” his doctor said.

Trump departed the White House by helicopter for Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The White House said the visit was precautionary and that he would work from the hospital’s presidential suite, which is equipped to allow him to continue his official duties.

“President Trump remains in good spirts, has mild symptoms, and has been working throughout the day,” said press secretary Kayleigh McEnany. “Out of an abundance of caution, and at the recommendation of his physician and medical experts, the president will be working from the presidential offices at Walter Reed for the next few days.”

Earlier today the White House said Trump had been injected with an experimental antibody cocktail by the White House physician.

Just a month before the presidential election, Trump’s revelation that he was positive for the virus came by tweet about 1 a.m. after he had returned from an afternoon political fundraiser. He had gone ahead, saying nothing to the crowd though knowing he had been exposed to an aide with the disease that has infected millions in America and killed more than a million people worldwide.

First lady Melania Trump also tested positive, the president said, and several others in the White House have, too, prompting concern that the White House or even Trump himself might have spread the virus further.

Trump has spent much of the year downplaying the threat of the virus, rarely wearing a protective mask and urging states and cities to “reopen” and reduce or eliminate shutdown rules.

The president’s physician said in a memo that Trump received a dose of an experimental antibody cocktail by Regeneron that is in clinical trials. Navy Commander Dr. Sean Conley said Trump “remains fatigued but in good spirits” and that a team of experts was evaluating both the president and first lady in regard to next steps.

The first lady, who is 50, has a “mild cough and headache,” Conley reported, and the remainder of the first family, including the Trumps’ son Barron, who lives at the White House, tested negative.

Both Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris have tested negative, their campaign said. Vice President Mike Pence tested negative for the virus Friday morning and “remains in good health,” his spokesman said.

Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, Judge Amy Coney Barrett, who was with him and many others on Saturday and has been on Capitol Hill meeting with lawmakers, also tested negative, the White House said.

Trump’s diagnosis was sure to have a destabilizing effect in Washington and around the world, raising questions about how far the virus has spread through the highest levels of the U.S. government. Hours before Trump announced he had contracted the virus, the White House said a top aide who had traveled with him during the week had tested positive.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

My wife, Elaine and I, will be traveling today to spend a few days on Nantucket.

We have tried to observe all of the social distancing guidelines since early March and this will

be our first major venture out of our home in New York.

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

In 2006, President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett signed on to an advertisement in an Indiana newspaper that called for overturning Roe v. Wade.

Her participation in the ad published in the South Bend Tribune, first reported by The Guardian, made clear her view on the contentious issue even as Trump seeks to appeal to religious conservatives who make up an important voting bloc for him in the Nov. 3 U.S. presidential election.

Barrett and her husband, a former federal prosecutor, both were among those who lent their names to the ad, which called the Roe v. Wade decision “an exercise of raw judicial power.”

“It’s time to put an end to the barbaric legacy of Roe v. Wade and restore law that protects the lives of unborn children,” the advertisement, purchased by an anti-abortion organization called St. Joseph County Right to Life, stated.

Barrett, who on Thursday continued with a series of meetings with individual senators ahead of Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearings due to start on Oct. 12, declined to answer questions about the ad. Democratic committee members can be expected to press her on the issue.

Trump, who in January addressed an anti-abortion rally in Washington and said “unborn children have never had a stronger defender in the White House,” promised during the 2016 presidential race to appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Trump has called on the Senate to confirm Barrett to replace the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a defender of abortion rights, by Election Day. During Tuesday’s debate, Trump objected when his Democratic challenger Joe Biden said the fate of Roe V. Wade was “on the ballot” in the election. Trump told Biden, “You don’t know her view on Roe v. Wade.”

A devout Catholic who earned a law degree and taught at the University of Notre Dame, Barrett is a favorite of religious conservatives. She was a law professor at Notre Dame at the time of the ad.

Overturning the ruling has been a longstanding goal of U.S. religious conservatives. The ruling recognized that a constitutional right to personal privacy protects a woman’s ability to obtain an abortion. The court in 1992 reaffirmed the ruling and prohibited laws that place an “undue burden” on obtaining an abortion. Conservative opponents of the ruling have argued that the case was wrongly decided.

Barrett’s public position on Roe v. Wade is not a surprise!

Tony

Dear Commons Community,

President Donald Trump announced yesterday that he and first lady Melania Trump have tested positive for the coronavirus.

Trump, who has spent much of the year downplaying the threat of a virus that has killed more than 205,000 Americans, said he and Mrs. Trump were quarantining. The White House physician said the president is expected to continue carrying out his duties “without disruption” while recovering. As reported by several major news media outlets.

Trump’s diagnosis was sure to have a destabilizing effect in Washington, raising questions about how far the virus had spread through the highest levels of the U.S. government. Hours before Trump announced he had contracted the virus, the White House said a top aide who had traveled with him during the week had tested positive.

“Tonight, @FLOTUS and I tested positive for COVID-19. We will begin our quarantine and recovery process immediately,” Trump tweeted just before 1 a.m. “We will get through this TOGETHER!”

Trump was last seen by reporters returning to the White House on Thursday evening and did not appear visibly ill. Trump is 74 years old, putting him at higher risk of serious complications from a virus that has infected more than 7 million people nationwide.

The president’s physician said in a memo that Trump and the first lady, who is 50, “are both well at this time” and “plan to remain at home within the White House during their convalescence.”

The diagnosis marks a devastating blow for a president who has been trying desperately to convince the American public that the worst of the pandemic is behind them. In the best of cases, if he develops no symptoms, which can include fever, cough and breathing trouble, it will force him off the campaign trail just weeks before the election.

Trump’s handling of the pandemic has already been a major flashpoint in his race against Democrat Joe Biden, who spent much of the summer off the campaign trail and at his home in Delaware because of the virus. Biden has since resumed a more active campaign schedule, but with small, socially distanced crowds. He also regularly wears a mask in public, something Trump mocked him for at Tuesday night’s debate.

“I don’t wear masks like him,” Trump said of Biden. “Every time you see him, he’s got a mask. He could be speaking 200 feet away from me, and he shows up with the biggest mask I’ve ever seen.”

There was no immediate comment from the Biden campaign on whether the former vice president had been tested since appearing at the debate with Trump or whether he was taking any additional safety protocols.

Trump had been scheduled to attend a fundraiser and hold another campaign rally in Sanford, Florida, on Friday evening. But just after 1 a.m., the White House released a revised schedule with only one event: a phone call on “COVID-19 support to vulnerable seniors.”

Trump’s announcement came hours after he confirmed that Hope Hicks, one of his most trusted and longest-serving aides, had been diagnosed with the virus Thursday. Hicks began feeling mild symptoms during the plane ride home from a rally in Minnesota on Wednesday evening, according to an administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose private information. She was isolated from other passengers aboard the plane, the person said.

Hicks had been with Trump and other senior staff aboard Marine One and Air Force One en route to that rally and had accompanied the president to Tuesday’s presidential debate in Cleveland, along with members of the Trump family. They did not wear masks during the debate, in violation of the venue rules.

Multiple White House staffers have previously tested positive for the virus, including Vice President Mike Pence’s press secretary, Katie Miller, national security adviser Robert O’Brien and one of the president’s personal valets.

But Trump has consistently played down concerns about being personally vulnerable, even after White House staff and allies were exposed and sickened. Since the coronavirus emerged earlier this year, Trump has refused to abide by basic public health guidelines — including those issued by his own administration — such as wearing masks in public and practicing social distancing. Instead, he has continued to hold campaign rallies that draw thousands of supporters.

“I felt no vulnerability whatsoever,” he said told reporters back in May.

The news was sure to rattle an already shaken nation still grappling with how to safely reopen the economy without driving virus transmission. The White House has access to near-unlimited resources, including a constant supply of quick-result tests, and still failed to keep the president safe, raising questions about how the rest of the country will be able to protect its workers, students and the public as businesses and schools reopen.

Questions remain about why it took so long for Trump to be tested and why he and his aides continued to come to work and travel after Hicks fell ill. Trump traveled to New Jersey on Thursday for a fundraiser, exposing attendees to the virus.

Pence’s aides had no immediate comment on whether the vice president had been tested or in contact with Trump.

It is unclear where the Trumps and Hicks may have caught the virus, but in his Fox interview, Trump seemed to suggest it may have been spread by someone in the military or law enforcement.

“It’s very, very hard when you are with people from the military or from law enforcement, and they come over to you, and they want to hug you, and they want to kiss you,” he said, “because we really have done a good job for them. And you get close. And things happen.”

The White House began instituting a daily testing regimen for the president’s senior aides after earlier positive cases close to the president. Anyone in close proximity to the president or vice president is also tested every day, including reporters.

Yet since the early days of the pandemic, experts have questioned the health and safety protocols at the White House and asked why more wasn’t being done to protect the commander in chief. Trump continued to shake hands with visitors long after public health officials were warning against it, and he initially resisted being tested.

Trump is far from the first world leader to test positive for the virus, which previously infected Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who spent a week in the hospital, including three nights in intensive care. Former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was hospitalized last month while fighting what he called a “hellish” case of COVID-19.

While there is currently no evidence that Trump is seriously ill, the positive test raises questions about what would happen if he were to become incapacitated due to illness.

The Constitution’s 25th Amendment spells out the procedures under which the president can declare himself “unable to discharge the powers and duties” of the presidency. If he were to make that call, Trump would transmit a written note to the Senate president pro tempore, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. Pence would serve as acting president until Trump transmitted “a written declaration to the contrary.”

The vice president and a majority of either the Cabinet or another body established by law can also declare the president unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, in which case Pence would “immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President” until Trump could provide a written declaration to the contrary.

We wish Trump and his wife a full recovery!

Tony

Evaluating Chris Wallace’s Performance during the Debate

Dear Commons Community,

The video above is an evaluation of Chris Wallace’s performance as moderator during the first presidential debate from The Young Turks.

Wallace  conceded he was initially “reluctant” to step in during the Trump-Biden matchup. “I’ve never been through anything like this,” he said.

“I never dreamt that it would go off the tracks the way it did,”  

“I’m just sad with the way last night turned out.”

As reported by the New York Times.

Chris Wallace, the “Fox News Sunday” anchor and moderator of Tuesday’s melee of a debate between President Trump and Joseph R. Biden Jr., was on the phone Wednesday from his home in Annapolis, Md., reflecting on — his words — “a terrible missed opportunity.”

“I never dreamt that it would go off the tracks the way it did,” he said.

In his first interview since the chaotic and often incoherent spectacle — in which a pugilistic Mr. Trump relentlessly interrupted opponent and moderator alike — Mr. Wallace conceded that he had been slow to recognize that the president was not going to cease flouting the debate’s rules.

“I’ve read some of the reviews. I know people think, well, gee, I didn’t jump in soon enough,” Mr. Wallace said, his voice betraying some hoarseness from the previous night’s proceedings. “I guess I didn’t realize — and there was no way you could, hindsight being 20/20 — that this was going to be the president’s strategy, not just for the beginning of the debate but the entire debate.”

Recalling his thoughts as he sat onstage in the Cleveland hall, with tens of millions of Americans watching live, Mr. Wallace said: “I’m a pro. I’ve never been through anything like this.”

Mr. Trump’s bullying behavior had no obvious precedent in presidential debates, even the one that Mr. Wallace previously moderated, to acclaim, in 2016. In the interview, the anchor said that when Mr. Trump initially engaged directly with Mr. Biden, “I thought this was great — this is a debate!”

But as the president gave no sign of backing off, Mr. Wallace said, he grew more alarmed. “If I didn’t try to seize control of the debate — which I don’t know that I ever really did — then it was going to just go completely off the tracks,” he said.

Asked what he was feeling when he called the debate to a temporary halt — instructing the candidates that “the country would be better served if we allowed both people to speak with fewer interruptions” — Mr. Wallace said, “The answer to that question is easy: Desperation.”

Asked directly if Mr. Trump had derailed the debate, Mr. Wallace replied, “Well, he certainly didn’t help.”

Care to elaborate? “No,” Mr. Wallace said. “To quote the president, ‘It is what it is.’”

In the spotlight, Mr. Wallace was keenly aware of the complexity of his task: ensuring an evenhanded debate, avoiding taking sides, allowing candidates to express themselves while keeping the discussion substantive.

“You’re reluctant — as somebody who has said from the very beginning that I wanted to be as invisible as possible, and to enable them to talk — to rise to the point at which you begin to interject more and more,” Mr. Wallace said. “First to say, ‘Please don’t interrupt,’ then ‘Please obey the rules,’ and third, ‘This isn’t serving the country well.’ Those are all tough steps at real time, at that moment, on that stage.”

The Commission on Presidential Debates said on Wednesday that it would examine changes to the format of this year’s remaining encounters between Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump, a clear sign of its frustration with the results of Tuesday evening. The commission also took pains to praise Mr. Wallace for his “professionalism and skill.”

The suggestion that moderators be given the power to mute the candidates’ microphones — popular on social media in the hours after the event — did not sit well with Mr. Wallace.

“As a practical matter, even if the president’s microphone had been shut, he still could have continued to interrupt, and it might well have been picked up on Biden’s microphone, and it still would have disrupted the proceedings in the hall,” he said.

And he noted that cutting off the audio feed of a presidential candidate is a more consequential act than some pundits give it credit for. “People have to remember, and too many people forget, both of these candidates have the support of tens of millions of Americans,” he said.

Steve Scully of C-SPAN is set to moderate the next debate, in a town-hall format where Florida voters will ask many of the questions. Kristen Welker of NBC News is the moderator for the final debate. Mr. Wallace’s advice: “If either man goes down this road, I hope you’ll be quicker to realize what’s going on than I was. I didn’t have that advance warning.”

Back in Annapolis, “I’ve been involved in a certain amount of soul-searching.”

“Generally speaking, I did as well as I could, so I don’t have any second thoughts there,” Mr. Wallace said, in conclusion. “I’m just disappointed with the results. For me, but much more importantly, I’m disappointed for the country, because it could have been a much more useful evening than it turned out to be.”

It is interesting to hear Wallace’s perspective on the debate or maybe “debacle” is a better word.

Tony

McKinsey & Co.

Dear Commons Community,

In its latest report, McKinsey & Co. finds that executives are more hopeful about the economy than they have been at any time so far during the COVID-19 crisis.   Here is an excerpt.

“Six months after WHO declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, the responses to the  latest McKinsey Global Survey suggest a positive shift in economic sentiment. More than half of all executives surveyed say economic conditions in their own countries will be better six months from now, while 30 percent say they will worsen (see above figure). That’s the smallest percentage of pessimists we’ve seen since the survey in April 2020.

Taking a cue from those executives, our researchers delved deep into the US situation, emerging with an understanding of what it will take to deliver an optimistic outcome. The case depends on the progress made to date—and the potential for more. We’ve learned much about the natural history and epidemiology of COVID-19. We’re developing better diagnostics, including rapid point-of-care tests, a few of which can be completed in about 15 minutes. Case management has improved. And pharmaceutical companies have turned out a remarkably robust pipeline of vaccine and therapeutic candidates. Put it all together, and an end to the pandemic is potentially within range.

Another new survey reveals the extent of the COVID-19 crisis’s disruption in working practices and behaviors. One-third of surveyed companies have accelerated the digitization of their supply chains, half have sped up the digitization of their customer channels, and two-thirds have moved faster to adopt artificial intelligence and automation. Many other workforce changes are also in progress.

Managers need to process these changes and many others, and come to grips with the long-term strategic-planning agenda. The essential question: what is the right way to think about 2021 and beyond? Should companies unbatten the hatches, or is it too soon?”

There is hope at the end of the coronavirus tunnel!

Tony