Last month the U.S. added 379,000 jobs, a sign that the economy is trending toward recovery. Of the jobs added last month, 355,000 positions were added in the hospitality and leisure sector, an industry that was one of the hardest hit during the pandemic.
While February was the second straight month of beating job growth expectations, the White House says the country is "far from out of the woods," in terms of job recovery.
"The job market is still 9.5 million jobs down from where it was a year ago. By the way, that's 800,000 jobs worse than the depth of the Great Recession, so we are just awfully far from out of the woods," Jared Berstein, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, told Cheddar.
Furthermore, Black and Latino Americans are facing stagnation or even a rise in joblessness. The new report shows the rate of unemployment for Black Americans actually went up 0.7 percent last month while the jobless rate for Latinos fell only 0.1 percent to 8.5 percent.
"We have four million people stuck in long-term unemployment," Bernstein added.
While job growth for the country as a whole is improving, Bernstein said dissecting the job reports is key to understanding the entire story. As Americans wait on the Senate to debate over the most recent version of the American Rescue Plan, the White House has said parts of the plan directly address communities of color where joblessness has been rampant and others have had to work riskier, essential jobs through the pandemic.
"Now for those on the bottom leg of the K of this disparate K-shape recovery, unemployment insurance has been important," said Bernstein noting enhanced unemployment benefits are about to expire disproportionately affecting communities of color. "The American Rescue plan keeps them going."
President Donald Trump said he has decided to lower his combined tariff rates on imports of Chinese goods to 47% after talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on curbing fentanyl trafficking.
Universal Music Group and AI platform Udio have settled a copyright lawsuit and will collaborate on a new music creation and streaming platform. The companies announced on Wednesday that they reached a compensatory legal settlement and new licensing agreements. These agreements aim to provide more revenue opportunities for Universal's artists and songwriters. The rise of AI song generation tools like Udio has disrupted the music streaming industry, leading to accusations from record labels. This deal marks the first since Universal and others sued Udio and Suno last year. Financial terms of the settlement weren't disclosed.
Nvidia on Wednesday became the first public company to reach a market capitalization of $5 trillion. The ravenous appetite for the Silicon Valley company’s chips is the main reason that the company’s stock price has increased so rapidly since early 2023.
Chris Williamson, Chief Business Economist at S&P Global, breaks down September’s CPI print and inflation trends, explaining what it means for markets.
