Labor Line

June 2025_________________________ 

Labor line has job news and commentary with a one stop short cut for America’s job markets and job related data including the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 

This month's job and employment summary data are below and this month's inflation data is below that. 

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The Establishment Job Report with data released June 6, 2025.

   Current Job and Employment Data 

Jobs

Total Non-Farm Establishment Jobs up 139,000 to 159,561,000

Total Private Jobs up 140,000 to 135,968,000

Total Government Employment down 1,000 to 23,593,000 Note 

Civilian Non-Institutional Population up 188 thousand to 273,385,000

Civilian Labor Force down 599 thousand to 170,510,000

Employed down 671 thousand to 163,273,000

Employed Men down 238 thousand to 86,486,000

Employed Women down 433 thousand to 76,787,000

Unemployed up 72 thousand to 7,237,000

Not in the Labor Force up 787 thousand to 102,875,000

Unemployment Rate stayed the same at 4.2% or 7,237/170,150

Labor Force Participation Rate went down .2% to 62.4%, or 170,150/273,385

Prices and inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for all Urban Consumers was up by a monthly average of 2.9 percent for 2024. 

The CPI June report for the 12 months ending with May shows the 

CPI for All Items was up 2.3% 

CPI for Food and Beverages was up 2.8% 

CPI for Housing was up 4.0% 

CPI for Apparel was down .9% 

CPI for Transportation including gasoline was down 1.3% 

CPI for Medical Care was up 2.5% 

CPI for Recreation was up 1.8% 

CPI for Education was up 3.6% 

CPI for Communication was down 2.1% 

This Month’s Establishment Jobs Press Report

SOME OMINIOUS SIGNS

The Bureau of Labor Statistics published its June report for jobs in May. The employed declined by 671 thousand, as 599 thousand of them left their jobs and the labor force while 72 thousand became unemployed. The increase in the unemployed was enough to offset the decline in the labor force to keep the unemployment rate steady at 4.2%. The participation rate decreased .2% to 62.4 percent, a very low rate.

The seasonally adjusted total of establishment employment was up 139 thousand for May. The increase was 145 thousand more jobs in the private service sector combined with a decrease of 5 thousand jobs from goods production. The total of 140 thousand jobs gained in the private sector combined with a(n) decrease of 1 thousand government service jobs accounts for the total increase.

Goods production decreased by 5 thousand jobs. Natural resources dropped a thousand jobs while construction added a net of just 3.9 thousand jobs. In construction, residential specialty trade contractors lost 11.0 thousand jobs offset by job gains of 4.5 thousand in nonresidential specialty trade contractors and 6.7 thousand new jobs in construction of buildings. Heavy and engineering construction added 3.7 thousand jobs. Not a good month in construction.

Manufacturing lost a net of 8 thousand jobs. Durable goods were down 7 thousand where machinery jobs were down 7.3 thousand to account for most of the manufacturing job losses but no durable goods manufacturing sub sectors did well. Non-durable goods production was down a net of 1 thousand jobs. Food manufacturing added 3.9 thousand jobs, but no other non-durable goods sub sector did well; all but one lost jobs.

Government service employment decreased a net of a thousand jobs, but federal government employment dropped 22 thousand jobs. State government had no new jobs and local government added 21 thousand jobs. State and local government jobs excluding education increased by 23.8 thousand while both state and local government public education had lower employment, a loss of 3.2 thousand jobs. Private sector education added 8.7 thousand seasonally adjusted jobs, which brings the total of education to a net increase of 5.5 thousand jobs.

Health care took first place again for private service sector job gains with 78.3 thousand new jobs, up from last month. All four of the health care subsectors had more jobs with ambulatory care adding 28.7 thousand jobs; hospitals added 29.9 thousand jobs, a good month for hospitals; nursing and residential care were up 3.6 thousand jobs. Social assistance services added 16.1 thousand jobs, more than last month. Individual and family services had 15.6 thousand of the social service jobs. The growth rate for health care was up from last month to 4.05 percent, but still above the average of 2.20 percent per month of the last 15 years. Health care continues to have a larger and larger share of America’s jobs.

Leisure and hospitality added 48 thousand jobs. Arts, entertainment and recreation had 16.6 thousand of the jobs and accommodations and restaurants added 31.4 thousand more. The amusements, gambling and recreation sub sector adding 9.7 thousand of the arts, entertainment and recreation jobs; restaurants added 30.2 thousand jobs.

Trade, transportation and utilities had 4 thousand new jobs, way down from last month. While wholesale trade added 2.5 thousand jobs, retail trade dropped 6.5 thousand jobs. No retail trade sub sectors did well. Transportation added only 5.8 thousand jobs, after last month’s much bigger increase. Among modal transportation, air travel added 3.7 thousand new jobs. Couriers and messengers added 6.5 thousand jobs but warehousing and storage dropped 5.1 thousand jobs. Utilities were up 2.2 thousand jobs, a much larger than usual increase.

Professional and business services was down 18 thousand jobs, after last month’s modest gain. The professional and technical services subsector was down 1.9 thousand jobs in a poor month; where management of companies added 4.7 thousand jobs, more than usual for managing. The third sub sector, administrative and support services including waste management, was off 20.6 thousand jobs.

Among professional and technical services, only accounting and bookkeeping services did well adding a modest 3.1 thousand jobs. Otherwise scientific research and development services were off 3.9 thousand jobs, consistent with the Trump onslaught. Legal services added 1.1 thousand jobs but no other professional services did well. Among administrative support services, the primary job losses came in employment services, down 16.7 thousand jobs. No administrative sub sectors did well.

Information services had 2 thousand new jobs. Computing, data processing and web hosting had 3.2 thousand jobs while telecommunications was down 3.9 thousand jobs among other small job gains. Financial activities including real estate and rental and leasing services added 13 thousand jobs. Finance and insurance added 8.4 thousand jobs. Insurance companies had 5.3 thousand of the new finance jobs. Real estate had 1.3 thousand new jobs and rental and leasing services added another 2.9 thousand new jobs. The category, other, added 9 thousand jobs with all three sub sectors adding jobs; repair and maintenance services had 2.6 thousand new jobs, personal and laundry services another 3.2 thousand jobs while non-profit membership associations added 3.0 thousand jobs.  

The economy added 139 thousand jobs for May, down from last month. Establishment employment in May was 159.561 million with an annual growth rate of 1.05 percent, near population growth. Health care continued to have the biggest share of job growth with 56 percent of new jobs in May. Attacking Medicaid and Medicare and health care in general will be devastating for jobs. Job gains were concentrated in just three sectors or sub sectors: 87 percent in health care, restaurants and financial services. Key sectors continue to do poorly, especially professional and business services, trade and manufacturing. Tariffs?? This month’s job total is 1.733 million above May a year ago and 3.774 million jobs above May two years ago. Both of these totals are less than last month, another bad sign for jobs.

May Details 

Non Farm Total +139

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported Non-Farm employment for establishments increased from April by 139 thousand jobs for a(n) May total of 159.561 million. (Note 1 below) An increase of 139 thousand each month for the next 12 months represents an annual growth rate of +1.05% The annual growth rate from a year ago beginning May 2024 was +1.10%; the average annual growth rate from 5 years ago beginning May 2020 was +3.71%; from 15 years ago beginning May 2010 it was +1.34%. The high five year growth rate  derives from the low Pandemic employment. America needs growth around 1.5 percent a year to keep itself employed.

Sector breakdown for 12 Sectors in 000’s of jobs 

1. Natural Resources -1

Natural Resources jobs including logging and mining decreased 1 thousand from April with 625 thousand jobs in May. A decrease of 1 thousand jobs each month for the next 12 months would be an annual growth rate of -1.92 percent.   Natural resource jobs were up 1 thousand from a year ago. Jobs in 2000 averaged around 600 thousand with little prospect for growth.  This is the smallest of 12 major sectors of the economy with .4 percent of establishment jobs.

2. Construction +4

Construction jobs were up 4 thousand from April with 8.314 million jobs in May. An increase of 4 thousand jobs each month for the next 12 months would be an annual growth rate of +.58 percent.  Construction jobs are up 126 thousand for the 12 months just ended. The growth rate for the last 15 years is 2.77%. Construction jobs rank 9th among the 12 sectors with 5.2 percent of non-farm employment.

3. Manufacturing -8

Manufacturing jobs were down 8 thousand from April with 12.761 million jobs in May. A decrease of 8 thousand jobs each month for the next 12 months would be an annual growth rate of -.75 percent.  Manufacturing jobs were down for the last 12 months by 88 thousand. The growth rate for the last 15 years is +.68%. Manufacturing ranks 6th among 12 major sectors in the economy with 8.0 percent of establishment jobs.

4. Trade, Transportation & Utility +4

Trade, both wholesale and retail, transportation and utility employment were up 4 thousand jobs from April with 29.097 million jobs in May. An increase of 4 thousand jobs each month for the next 12 months would be an annual growth rate of +.16 percent. Jobs are up by 162 thousand for last 12 months. Growth rates for the last 15 years are +1.13 percent. Jobs in these sectors rank first as the biggest sectors with combined employment of 18.2 percent of total establishment employment.

5. Information Services +2

Information Services jobs were up 2 thousand from April with 2.940 million jobs in May.  (Note 2 below)  An increase of 2 thousand jobs for the next 12 months would be an annual growth rate of +.82 percent. Jobs are down by 13 thousand for the last 12 months. Information jobs reached 3.7 million at the end of 2000, but started dropping, reaching 3 million by 2004 and has slowly come back to 3.0 million in the last decade. Information Services is a small sector ranking 11th of 12 with 1.8 percent of establishment jobs.

6. Financial Activities +13

Financial Activities jobs were up by 13 thousand jobs from April to 9.254 million in May. An increase of 13 thousand jobs for the next 12 months would be an annual growth rate of +1.69 percent. Jobs are up 95 thousand for the last 12 months.  (Note 3 below) This sector also includes real estate as well as real estate lending. The 15 year growth rate is +1.23 percent. Financial activities rank 8th of 12 with 5.8 percent of establishment jobs.

7. Business and Professional Services -18

Business and Professional Service jobs went down 18 thousand from April to 22.575 million in May. A decrease of 18 thousand each month for the next 12 months would be an annual growth rate of -.96 percent. Jobs are down 81 thousand for the last 12 months. Note 4 The annual growth rate for the last 15 years was +2.05 percent. It ranks as 2nd among the 12 sectors now. It was 2nd in 1993, when manufacturing was bigger and third rank now with 14.2 percent of establishment employment. 

8. Education including public and private +6

Education jobs were up 6 thousand jobs from April at 14.858 million in May. An increase of 6 thousand jobs each month for the next 12 months would be an annual growth rate of +.44 percent. These include public and private education. Jobs are up 188 thousand for the last 12 months. (note 5) The 15 year growth rate equals +.60 percent. Education ranks 5th among 12 sectors with 9.3 percent of establishment jobs.

9. Health Care +78

Health care jobs were up 78 thousand from April to 23.289 million in May. An increase of 78 thousand each month for the next 12 months would be an annual growth rate of +4.05 percent. Jobs are up 854 thousand for the last 12 months. (note 6)  The health care long term 15 year growth rate has been +2.20 percent lately compared to +3.02 percent for this month’s jobs. Health care ranks 2nd of 12 with 14.5 percent of establishment jobs.

10. Leisure and hospitality +48

Leisure and hospitality jobs were up 48 thousand from April to 17.053 million in May.  (note 7) An increase of 48 thousand each month for the next 12 months would be an annual growth rate of +3.39 percent. Jobs are up 262 thousand for the last 12 months. More than 80 percent of leisure and hospitality are accommodations and restaurants assuring that most of the new jobs are in restaurants. Leisure and hospitality ranks 4th of 12 with 10.7 percent of establishment jobs. It moved up to 7th from 4th in the pandemic decline.

11. Other +9

Other Service jobs, which include repair, maintenance, personal services and non-profit organizations were up 9 thousand from April to 6.039 million in May. An increase of 9 thousand each month for the next 12 months would be an annual growth rate of +1.79 percent. Jobs are up 76 thousand for the last 12 months. (Note 8) Other services had +.84 percent growth for the last 15 years. These sectors rank 10th of 12 with 3.8 percent of total non-farm establishment jobs.

12. Government, excluding education +2

Government service employment went up 2 thousand from April at 12.756 million jobs in May. An increase of 2 thousand each month for the next 12 months would be an annual growth rate of +.17 percent. Jobs are up 150 thousand for the last 12 months.  (note 9) Government jobs excluding education tend to increase slowly with a 15 year growth rate of +.10 percent. Government, excluding education, ranks 7th of 12 with 8.0 percent of total non-farm establishment jobs.

Sector Notes__________________________

(1) The total cited above is non-farm establishment employment that counts jobs and not people. If one person has two jobs then two jobs are counted. It excludes agricultural employment and the self employed. Out of a total of people employed agricultural employment typically has about 1.5 percent, the self employed about 6.8 percent, the rest make up wage and salary employment. Jobs and people employed are close to the same, but not identical numbers because jobs are not the same as people employed: some hold two jobs. Remember all these totals are jobs. back

(2) Information Services is part of the new North American Industry Classification System(NAICS). It includes firms or establishments in publishing, motion picture & sound recording, broadcasting, Internet publishing and broadcasting, telecommunications, ISPs, web search portals, data processing, libraries, archives and a few others.back

(3) Financial Activities includes deposit and non-deposit credit firms, most of which are still known as banks, savings and loan and credit unions, but also real estate firms and general and commercial rental and leasing.back

(4) Business and Professional services includes the professional areas such as legal services, architecture, engineering, computing, advertising and supporting services including office services, facilities support, services to buildings, security services, employment agencies and so on.back

(5) Education includes private and public education. Therefore education job totals include public schools and colleges as well as private schools and colleges. back

(6) Health care includes ambulatory care, private hospitals, nursing and residential care, and social services including child care. back

(7) Leisure and hospitality has establishment with arts, entertainment and recreation which has performing arts, spectator sports, gambling, fitness centers and others, which are the leisure part. The hospitality part has accommodations, motels, hotels, RV parks, and full service and fast food restaurants. back

(8) Other is a smorgasbord of repair and maintenance services, especially car repair, personal services and non-profit services of organizations like foundations, social advocacy and civic groups, and business, professional, labor unions, political groups and political parties. back

(9) Government job totals include federal, state, and local government administrative work but without education jobs. back

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Notes

Jobs are not the same as employment because jobs are counted once but one person could have two jobs adding one to employment but two to jobs. Also the employment numbers include agricultural workers, the self employed, unpaid family workers, household workers and those on unpaid leave. Jobs are establishment jobs and non-other. back

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Sherburn on Cowardice Old and New

 

Sherburn on Cowardice Old and New

Colonel Sherburn – a proud looking man about 55 – and he was a heap and the best dressed man in that town.

Do I know you? I know you clear through. I was born and raised in the South, and I’ve lived in the North; so I know the average all around. The average man’s a coward. In the North he lets anybody walk over him that wants to, and goes home and pray for a humble spirit to bear it. In the South one man, all by himself, has stopped a stage full of men in daytime and robbed the lot. Your newspapers call you a brave people so much that you think you are braver than any other people – where as you’re just as brave and no braver. Why don’t your juries hang murderers? Because their afraid the man’s friends will shoot them in the back, in the dark – and it’s just what they would do.

. . . The average man don’t like trouble and danger. But if only half a man – like Buck Harkness there – shouts ‘Lynch him! Lynch him!’ you’re afraid to back down – afraid to be found out for what you are – cowards – and so you raise a yell, and hang yourself onto that half-a-man’s coattail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things you’re going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that’s what an army is – a mob; they don’t fight with courage that’s born in them, but from courage that’s borrowed from their mass, and from their officers.

------------From Colonel Sherburn’s slow and scornful speech, Chapter 22, of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  

Arthur Schlesinger's Imperial Presidency

Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. The Imperial Presidency, (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin Company, 1973) 0-395-17713-8

Some may doubt the need, or use, to review a book about the powers and duties of U.S, presidents published 52 years ago in 1973. But wait! Allow me to quote from page 418 of this 419 page book. “If the Nixon White House escaped the consequences of its illegal behavior, why would future Presidents and their associates not suppose themselves entitled to do what the Nixon White House had done? . . . We have noted that corruption appears to visit the White House in fifty-year cycles. This suggests that exposure and retribution inoculate the Presidency against its latent criminal impulses for about half a century. Around the year 2023 the American people would be well advised to go on alert and start nailing down everything in sight.”

Arthur Schlesinger passed away in 2007 but not his relevance to Trump. The book has eleven chapters that start with two chapters outlining the 1787 constitutional debate defining the executive power of the president. Narrative for the next five chapters follow a historical chronology of events almost entirely confined to the war making and foreign policy powers in the presidential office. The last three chapters discuss democracy in relation to foreign policy, the uses and abuses of presidential secrecy and a discussion of the future of the presidential office.

The founding fathers did not want the president to have the sole power to declare war. After long debate they adopted the Alexander Hamilton proposals that the Senate will have the sole power of declaring war and the executive will direct the war authorized by Congress. There would be a separation of power: Congress would declare war, the President would be commander and chief. The 1787 debate assures no one considered the president’s role as commander in chief as a source of independent authority.

From the beginning the separation of power generated a history of struggles with the President asserting authority to make foreign policy decisions without consulting Congress, or in direct opposition by it. Except for making treaties and nominating ambassadors with the advice and consent of the Senate, Schlesinger explains the Constitution has nothing else to say about foreign affairs and diplomacy. Nothing written guides recognizing foreign governments, declaring neutrality in international disputes, the status of executive agreements or the gathering or sharing of foreign intelligence.  No sections clarify authority in military emergencies. Many of the contested decisions involve military deployment in disputes that fill chapters 3 through 7 where Schlesinger narrates the Constitutional disputes between Congress and the many Presidents from colonial times to Richard Nixon.

The presidents often got their way in foreign policy by easily exploiting a divided Congress such as John Tyler and James K. Polk with Mexico and Abraham Lincoln with the Civil War. While the Constitution provides Congress with separate powers to restrain a defiant president, these powers tend to be hard to use such as impeachment, veto of a treaty, or refusal to vote funds; consensus can be hard to assemble. Schlesinger narrates many of these episodes like the impeachment of President Andrew Johnson and the battle over Woodrow Wilson’s League of Nations after WWI. Separate chapters narrate disputes between Congress and Franklin Roosevelts in WWII, between Congress and President Truman in the Korean War, and between Congress and Presidents Johnson and Nixon in the Vietnam War.

After this thorough historical review, the narrative reaches Chapter 8 where Schlesinger characterizes the Imperial Presidency and then applies these characteristics to Richard Nixon.  He argues Nixon ignored his cabinet and brought an unprecedented exclusion of Congress, the Press, and public opinion from governmental decision making and concentrated power in the White House. Nixon asserted absolute authority over the Vietnam War and foreign policy and then expanded the imperial presidency to take over domestic policy as well.

Schlesinger lived through the Nixon era as an active and informed historian and journalist. In the Imperial Presidency he characterized Nixon as a man with “revolutionary dreams,” a “sense of life as a battlefield” and a president “whose inner mix of vulnerability and ambition impelled him to push the historical logic to its extremity.”

In domestic policy, Nixon, like Trump after him, proposed corporate tax relief, made offers of subsidies, threats of tariffs, and various lucrative deals to reward the politically compliant and punish the unregenerate. Nixon, like Trump after him, used the executive order to alter legislation, or change the authority of boards or agencies to suit his purpose. Nixon expected to shape policy by impounding funds for Congressionally approved projects he did not like. In July 1969 his Administration released a statement they would not enforce Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. He appointed an Office of Economic Opportunity director to dismantle the agency that Congress had voted to continue.

Nixon asserted power to revoke legislation such as the Family Practice of Medicine Act passed Congress by overwhelming veto proof majorities December 14, 1970. He declined to return the bill to Congress with his veto within the required 10 days but instead waited eight days and declared a five day holiday recess gave him authority to defeat the bill with a pocket veto. Republican Senator Jacob Javits declared the bill “illegally vetoed” and commented “If the pocket veto clause applies to a five-day adjournment, why should it not also apply to an adjournment of three days, or a weekend, or one day, or overnight.”

Nixon expanded executive privilege to new levels, often rejecting formal requests for documents or requests for administration officials to testify before Congress. He made unprecedented use of executive privilege to thwart investigation into his Watergate misconduct and expected to keep secrets from Congress and the country like bombing South East Asia during and after the Vietnam War.

Chapter 8 ends the narrative as historical chronology. By Chapter 9 readers have studied dozens of examples of presidents doing as they please and Congress unable to use their power to stop him. In the last three chapters Schlesinger wants to know “how a government based on the principle of the separation of powers could be made to work.” These chapters are topical rather than chronological but there are no answers, only more examples of the failure of the separation of powers to hold a president accountable.

Schlesinger’s Imperial Presidency gives readers little reason to believe our Constitution and the separation of powers can maintain democracy. In 1973 Schlesinger thought the Vietnam War proved our Constitution was obsolete and left presidents to exercise unchecked power. By the end of the book Schlesinger doubted the Constitution would be adequate to limit presidential misconduct “if the people themselves had come to an unconscious acceptance of the imperial presidency.” The country survived Nixon, but in 2025 the Nixon connection to Trump should be easy to feel. I find nothing that assures the country will survive Trump. After reading his book I feel certain Arthur Schlesinger would agree.

 

 

 

 

 

Public School Teacher Salaries in Fairfax, Virginia

Public School Teacher Salaries in Fairfax, Virginia

Recently I reviewed the Fairfax County Public School pay schedules for its classroom teachers. Fairfax County has one of the biggest school districts in the country.  The published schedules have pay for steps that have pay for each year of experience in the Fairfax County schools. The pay goes up from step to step to reflect individual seniority.

If a teacher moves up year by year, presumably from a satisfactory performance rating and also gets the cost of living adjustment for the adjusted pay schedules, then a teacher that stays in the system will get pay increases that raise their buying power, a.k.a. real wage. For example, a teacher fresh out of college at step one in 2020 received pay of $50,000. If five years later they were at step five in the 2025 cost adjusted pay scale they would earn $68,145, which provides a 10.7 percent increase in their real wage. That also equals 6.4 percent annual percent increase, more than the inflation rate for the period.

However, the story changes for those that enter teaching in later years or who enter the system with experience in other school systems. As the years have gone by the new pay scales do not keep with inflation. If I compare the step 5 salary in 2020 with the step 5 salary in 2025 for someone coming into the system, their 2020 was $58,492. For someone entering the system as a step 5 in 2025 their salary would be $63,005.  The 2025 salary is a cost adjusted salary drop in the real wage of 12.52 percent over the 2020 salary.

The decline also applies the more years of experience someone brings into the system. Someone at step 20 in 2020 received a salary of $79,469. Someone at step 20 in 2025 would receive a salary of $88,111. To keep up with inflation and keep a stable buying power the salary would need to be $97,856 in 2025. The $88,111 is a 9.96 percent decrease in the real wage for someone entering the system at step 20.

The pay scales are designed to encourage teachers to stay in the system and they will advance over time if they do, but since all new teachers have started at a systematically lower real wage year by year, they are advancing from a continuously lower real wage from the years before. In Fairfax County, Virginia, the public school teachers sink farther and farther down the economic ladder.

Trump’s Tariff Netherworld

Trump’s Tariff Netherworld

Forecasting the amount of economic change caused by a change in tariff rates requires a chain of data. The data would be prices and quantity of sales preferably by the month and over many years. When forecasters predict a change in sales from a price change the price changes typically come in modest or small changes. The percent change in quantity of sales per month is divided by the percent change in price, which economists define as elasticity.  Elasticity mostly varies by a small amount above or below -1. An elasticity of -1.5 would forecast a 1.5 percent decrease in quantity from a one percent increase in price. Applied to Trump’s 25 percent tariff the forecast would be a 37.5 percent decline in quantity. However, an immense change like 25 percent is totally outside the range of data or any experience for more than a 100 years. It is not a legitimate forecast. It could be much more or much less. The only reasonable forecast if tariffs go forward will be a steep decline into depression and more in the United States than elsewhere.

Trump talked and tweeted his way through his first term while others like Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell managed the economy. Corporate America got what it wanted in his first term and had the media promote him daily through Biden’s term, which put him in office for a second term. Corporate officials have made only tepid public comment against Trumps erratic trade war threats. No president at least since the end of reconstruction in 1877 has ever been able to defy corporate America. The recent 90-day tariff suspension suggests some positive influence, so it remains hard to think America’s CEO’s will sit by for him to ruin the economy, but we continue waiting for a more frank response.

Since January 20, 2025 the Trump tariff announcements have come day by day with erratic and often draconian changes in no apparent pattern or detectable plan. They have no resemblance to an economic policy. Always announcements come with his fabricated belief that other countries cheat the United States; beliefs without basis in history or fact. Given he thinks of the United States as an extension of his himself and his ego, his unpredictable paranoia has become a substitute for managing the economy. 

Trump appears increasingly deranged pushing conspiracies while corporate media refuses to call evil by its true name and corporate America refuses to employ its money bags to put a stop to it. Don’t be fooled, their money and determination put him in office and they can put him out. We can only wonder how far the economy and what remains of civil society will descend if they do not.

David Leonhardt, Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream

 

David Leonhardt, Ours Was the Shining Future: The Story of the American Dream, (NY:  Random House, 2023), 395 pages, $32.00

In his new book New York Times journalist David Leonhardt gives readers the origin of the term “American Dream.” It derives from an 1880’s book of history by an author I have never heard of named James Truslow Adams. A lengthy quote from the book, titled The Epic of America, describes the better, richer and happier life future progress will bring to Americans. As you might guess the Leonardt book writes about the disappearing American Dream.

The book has an Introduction, a Part I entitled “The Rise” with four chapters and a Part II entitled “The Fall” with six chapters, followed by a Conclusion of 26 pages. For no obvious reason the Introduction is numbered in roman numerals, ix- xxxiv, which often signals something readers might skip over.  Here though the Introduction should be read as part of the book.

Halfway into the introduction Leonhardt explains “For almost forty years now, the United States has been doing a worse job than any similar country of keeping its citizens healthy and alive.” How true, but he does not blame our failure on capitalism. Instead, he writes “My central argument is that capitalism remains the best system for delivering rising living standards to the greatest number of people – but only a certain type of capitalism.” He fills in this argument by defining three forces he argues generate the rise and fall of Democratic Capitalism as practiced in the United States. He gives brief discussion of Power, Culture, Investment.

The four chapters of Part I, The Rise, offer quite disparate people and events intended to trace the rise of the American Dream. Discussion stays within the 1920’s up to the early 1960’s.  The first chapter gives a sketch of depression era labor history and union organizing using the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strike as an example of working-class effort and success.  In chapter two readers meet businessman Paul Hoffman and a selection of other businessmen including automobile executive and Michigan Governor George Romney as examples of people who worked as trustees of the common welfare. Leonhardt contrasts the career and sacrifice of George Romney, the father, with his son Mitt Romney who opted for money making at Bain Capital. Chapter three does much the same for another selection of people that stayed in long run careers. Include here Dwight Eisenhower, computer pioneer Grace Hopper and some discussion of the government’s move to support long term research. Chapter 4 features the efforts of A. Philip Randolph of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters and his early struggles for racial equality.

Next, begins the six chapters of Part II, the Fall, that starts with chapter five entitled “The Young Intelligentsia.” Here readers meet C. Wright Mills, Tom Hayden, Betty Friedan, Raph Nader and follow their careers along with a supporting cast of people Leonhardt defines as New Left. He narrates their efforts and successes before shifting to the careers of people he defines as the old left, primarily four labor union leaders of the 1950’s and 1960’s: George Meany, Cesar Chavez, Walter Reuther and Jerry Wurf. Leonhardt takes six pages describing Meany’s failure to expand the labor movement, and while more charitable with the others they too failed to unify the working class.

Chapter Six starts describing a few celebrated crimes of the 1960’s and a plot of crime data that documents the increasing crime rate.  There follows a discussion of the academic and political response to crime.  Here Leonhardt provides the reaction to crime of Spiro Agnew, Richard Nixon, George Wallace and a much longer discussion of Robert Kennedy. Kennedy confronted the crime issue to unite the working class, something Democratic politicians have avoided ever since.

Chapter 7 and 8 develops the evolution of conservative ideology following Richard Nixon’s election. Many are mentioned in this effort in Chapter 7 but it primarily follows the Chicago School and the efforts of Milton Friedman and Robert Bork. Chapter 8 follows with the October 1973 Middle East oil embargo, which Leonhardt treats as the beginning of an era that “Clears the Track for Business.” Here Leonhardt follows the Ronald Reagan era and those in the anti-tax movement and the de-regulators like lobbyist Charls Walker, Congressman Jack Kemp, deregulator Ann Gorsuch and a little more of Robert Bork. The closing pages describe the Democrats response and evaluates the economic success of Republican “Neoliberals.”

Chapter Nine, “This Little Village Called America,” gives the historical background and politics of immigration. Narrative starts with 1924 and moves forward to Edward Kennedy and the 1965 immigration law, then onward to Congresswomen Barbara Jordan and the 1986 amendments and on to Bill Clinton, Bernie Sanders and the present immigration troubles. Chapter Ten, the last chapter before the conclusion, describes the decline in education spending, the rise of health care and income support subsidies and the failure to invest in the future or address inequality of income and wealth.

The designation of the first four chapters as Rise and the last six chapters as Fall feels out-of-place; all ten chapters feel like Fall.  Possibly the editors at Random House wanted something that feels good to include, but I found that quite difficult to find. For example, the Rise chapters included the 1934 Minneapolis Teamsters strike where employers made public calls to organize a “citizen army” of vigilantes to end picketing as a first response. Continuing the strike required a dangerous, deadly and ferocious battle to fight the employer’s organized violence until finally the intervention of Governor Olsen as impartial mediator got employers to the bargaining table. While the strike ended with some wage and labor gains, they amounted to a hiccup; I cannot find a consistent Rise through any periods in America’s labor relations.

Think of the above as a minor criticism to an otherwise well written book of important economic and public policy subjects. The book makes a rough progression through time, where chapter narratives are primarily topical and treat the people and events in the narrative as evidence for drawing conclusions. Leonhardt offers censure across the political spectrum such as “What the New Left tried to do, it often succeeded at doing. Yet, the movement never made much of an attempt to improve pay, benefits, and job conditions of the working class, . . .” How true.

Before narrating the chapter 7-8 Nixon-Reagan era, Leonhardt suggests “By the late 1960’s, millions of American workers had no political home.” How true and a perfect introduction for describing the corporate agenda that leaves the working class with declining real wages and greater inequality by 2025. Be sure to read the immigration chapter carefully, it provides a thorough and excellent discussion of the evolving controversies of immigration law and policy, the best chapter in my opinion.

The Conclusion chapter returns to the American dream and the power, culture, investment forces that he mentioned at the beginning. He writes “If there is a central reason for the decline of the American dream over the past half century, it has been the lack of a strong political movement dedicated to protecting that dream.”  Lack of a strong political movement translates to a failure of the always-divided Democratic Party to be an opposition party and defend the working class.

The need for change and new direction dominates the conclusion narrative: “Think about how different American society might be if there were also strong movements to reduce corporate concentration, raise taxes on the wealthy, lower medical costs, create universal pre-K education and increase middle class pay.” He advises progressives interested in building a movement for change needs to know it “requires making the left less upscale than it now is and more inclusive of people who are not white collar professionals” and he counsels for a reinvigorated labor movement and listening more to the working class. In the last two paragraphs of the book Leonhardt expresses outrage for the past up to the present but hope for the future. After finishing the narrative, I can agree America is not hopeless, but I found precious little hope for a shining future.

 

The Trump Recession Watch

Update June 9, 2025

The erratic announcements continue with new and higher tariff announcements coming in what feels like an equal number of announcements suspending them. The "Big Beautiful" budget debate has focused on spending cuts, especially in Medicaid, but it should be noted that the budget deficit is money borrowed that will be put back into the spending stream. A recession comes with a slow down in spending but a monster budget deficit puts billions back into the spending stream and brings a high potential for inflation and higher interest rates. Nothing I can find in public discussion suggests any coherent policy or anything remotely responsible. Recession? Inflation? Stagflation? Corporate America has split in two. Half wants to keep the profits flowing and so does not want tariffs, but the other half wants a depression. For them a depression generates an entertaining class warfare as a perk of their wealth and the upper class status. Chaos is still a good forecast. 

Update April 26, 2025

All financial and economic news has correctly predicted recession of severe proportion as we have listened to the belligerent Trump making daily threats and watch the stock market gyrate. I cannot understand how anyone could vote for Trump after the January 6 events; what did anyone think? Suspending the tariffs in random and unpredictable fashion is corporate America reasserting control over economic policy and Trump's unfiltered dribble, but they say nothing in public to challenge his legal or constitutional misconduct. The tariffs must be suspended permanently or the economy will fall into chaotic decline. Social security, Medicare and Medicaid must be sustained or a similar decline will result. 

Update April 6, 2025

I have not tried an update for so long given the bizarre and erratic announcements that appear to express the daily whims of Trump but nothing even approximating a coherent policy. Based on early announcements I thought tariffs would be on a selection of steel, aluminum, automobiles and automobile parts between Canada, Mexico and the United States and with continued tariffs on China. Instead we have a delusionary announcement of draconian tariffs of high and varied tariff(tax) rates for most of the rest of the world. 

Current production and trading worldwide reflects close to fifty years of continuous and successful efforts to lower tariffs. As I stated below economies need a stable flow of transactions to generate stable production, income and employment. If the U.S. actually goes ahead to collect these tariffs a stable economy will become unstable and there is no previous basis to predict how far the economy will fall; it will be a long way down. Since corporate America put Trump in office and owns Congress, we have to wonder what they plan to do with the Trump tariff delusion.

The Trump Recession Watch Update - March 16, 2025

There will be a nasty recession if the tariffs go forward as Trump demands. Jobs are vulnerable to even a modest recession because so many of the jobs that have replaced the lost manufacturing jobs are in vulnerable discretionary industries like leisure and hospitality at restaurants, accommodations, travel, and a variety of optional business services and in retail. In 1990 manufacturing jobs were 13.08 percent of establishment employment. If they were still 13.08 percent instead of 8 percent there would be 20.7 million manufacturing jobs instead of 12.6 million. Jobs will melt away in a recession, which is strictly optional. Where are the oligarchs? They may have gotten to Schumer and convinced him to keep the government operating as they want but we can hope in exchange for some limits to federal cuts. Our rich oligarchs do not want us to know how put off they are with Trump but I have to think they still expect to control him and they do not relish a recession. Time will tell.

The Trump Recession Watch Update - March 6, 2025

Suspending the tariffs for a month is a sign that corporate America remains in charge of the economy and does not want, or expect to benefit from, a recession. Every single thing Trump proposes will set off a recession, or worse, and so it cannot be at all certain recession/depression is not what is intended.

The Trump Recession Watch Update - March 5, 2025

The tariffs alone should be enough to set off a recession. If the federal share of Medicaid is slashed as threatened there will be a grimy and nasty recession. It is impossible to pull that much money out of the spending stream and keep the economy going. Employment will be falling; unemployment rising. We might wonder why corporate America with its reported 12,000 lobbyists would sit by wringing their hands, when it was their money bags that bought the Republicans and Congress. Either corporate America intends what is going on or they are cringing cowards.

The Trump Recession Watch – February 25, 2025

Before predicting a Trump recession, it is useful to remember the George W. Bush recession that began in the fall of 2008 and did not recover until early 2010. Recall it was W’s Crony’s that depressed the economy looting the banking system with speculative gambling in home mortgage innovations. By the third quarter of 2009 the Gross Domestic Product was down $450.1 billion dollars seasonally adjusted at annual rates. For an economy approaching $15 trillion of GDP in 2009 that was only a 3.4 percent decline. However, the quarterly average of seasonally adjusted employment was down 6,692,000 jobs. Jobs just melted away in a 3.4 percent GDP downturn.

Since an economy is nothing but a flow of transactions measured over time, Trump might take a hint from the Bush debacle and avoid depressing the economy. As February 2025 ends Trump has allowed Musk to dismiss probationary federal employees, but news reports put the number losing their jobs at 200,000, significant, but small compared to 6.692 million. So far Trump is all talk but no serious action toward a recession.

However, that could change given the talk of draconian cuts to health care programs like Medicare and Medicaid. The Bureau of Economic Analysis that produces the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) reports in their Table 3.12 an annual Medicaid budget of $878 billion dollars for 2023. Table 3.12 reports a Medicare budget of $1.009 trillion. From the beginning of Trump’s first term to eight years later at the end of Biden’s term health care provided 3.163 million new jobs or 27 percent of all new jobs, more than any other sub sector.

Some of the worthies in Congress have discussed eliminating the $878 billion Medicaid budget, a good way to start a recession. While the amount remains to be negotiated, it is worth remembering the beneficiaries of Medicaid do not receive a dime of that budget. All of the Medicaid budget goes directly to corporate health care venders in what is only the first round of a spending decline. Payroll cuts to doctors and nurses and revenue cuts to medical suppliers bring a second round of decline to the spending stream. The initial cuts reduce production, income and employment by three to four times the initial amount; economists call it a multiplier effect.

Managing the economy requires making sure the flow of transactions remains steady and increases with the growth of population and our productive capacity. That is an important point because recessions in the modern economy are strictly optional and can be readily avoided with cooperation of the Federal Reserve Bank and the United States Treasury.

Back in the 19th and early 20th century recessions were a regular occurrence like the recessions and depressions of 1873-1878, 1881-1884, 1893-1897, 1907, 1913-14, 1920-1921. In those days it was tough to manage the economy without a central bank and corporate America determined to hang onto the gold standard. Once the Great Depression of 1929 got under way the Franklin Roosevelt administration threw out the gold standard and with the Banking Act of 1935 introduced the modern tools of monetary and economic policy.

Today’s monetary management makes recessions optional like the George W. Bush recession where rogues and scoundrels had enough concentrated power to pursue their own agenda. It is easy to notice Trump and Musk have their own agenda and any economic decline will be caused as their option. Trump threatened many depressing economic policies before his inauguration and his policy pronouncements since January 20 have been universally depressing. Corporate America has pursued lower tariffs for at least 60 years because they learned, slowly but surely, that tariffs bring retaliation. A 25% tariff on Canada, our biggest trading partner, will bring retaliation and depress both economies. Mass deportation, as opposed to slowing immigration, will be economically depressing as will draconian cuts in Medicaid and Medicare or in food stamp aid or AID with its food for peace program.

Since corporate America has been the primary force making economic policy in the United States since the 19th century, we might wonder who is in charge here? Corporate America made all economic decisions during Trump’s first term, which is why tariffs remained low and immigrant labor, documented or not, remained cheap and plentiful and the economy did well. Corporate America has been restrained and somewhat subdued so far, but going along with DEI pronouncements, beating up on the federal workforce or taking over the Kennedy Center does not threaten the larger economy.

Corporate America has always expected Presidents to serve corporate power, not the other way around. Since WWII corporate America has preferred a stable economy, but never assume as economists like to do that corporate America can be counted on to just maximize profits. America’s labor history proves a segment of corporate America and the wealthy like class warfare. In 2025, Musk represents the warfare segment of the wealthy who know a depressed economy generates inequality as a perk of the upper class. If Trump wants his second term economy to go as well as his first, he will opt out of recession. The upcoming budget debate will tell the story. Watch the policy fight coming up, but expect corporate America still has the unity to neutralize the budget ax, tariffs, deportations and Musk. Updates!

Trump versus Biden on Jobs

Trump versus Biden on Jobs

To compare jobs in the economy during the Trump years of 2017 to 2021 with the Biden years of 2021 to 2025 requires allowing for the job losses from the Pandemic quarantine, which recall started in the early spring of 2020. In the jobs data for March 2020 establishment employment reached 150.898 million jobs. A month later in April 2020 establishment employment declined to only 130.421 million jobs, a decline of 20.477 million jobs.

Both presidents were in office for 48 months, the usual four year term. In the first 39 pre-Pandemic months of Trump’s first term in office, establishment employment increased by 5.262 million jobs. The Pandemic job decline of April 2020 and slow job recovery restored the Pandemic job losses by February 2022, the thirteenth month into the Biden Administration. While many continued to wear face masks and be wary of spreading Covid, the pharmaceutical industry had a vaccine available and jobs had returned to their pre-Pandemic total and a semblance of normality. This leaves the last 35 months of the Biden administration as a normal and comparable period for review with the first 39 months of the Trump administration.

In the first 13 months of the Biden Administration jobs increased just under 7.960 million to 150.876 million jobs, which restored the remaining Pandemic job losses left from the Trump term. In the last 35 months of the Biden administration beginning with February 2022, national employment increased by 8.660 million jobs. Therefore, the Trump economy that generated 5.262 million new jobs during the 39 months the pre-Pandemic months did not do as well creating jobs as the post Pandemic Biden economy that generated 8.660 million jobs in 35 months.

The Biden administration’s superior performance on jobs resulted primarily from a selection of industries where the Biden economy did much better.

Health Care and Education

Start with health care where Trump created 1.326 million health care jobs in 39 months while the Biden economy created 2.691 million jobs in 35 months. Move to education where the Trump economy created 90 thousand jobs in private education, while the Biden administration created 256 thousand jobs. In state supported public education the Trump economy created 84 thousand jobs while the Biden economy created 192 thousand jobs. In the local public schools the Trump economy created 130 thousand new jobs where the Biden economy created 457 thousand new jobs.

Leisure and Hospitality

Leisure and hospitality did much better during the Biden Administration and in all its sub sectors: performing arts, spectator sports, museums, historical sites, amusements, gambling, recreation, accommodations, restaurants and related food services. The combined changes were 284 thousand more jobs for Trump in 39 months while the Biden economy added 1.527 million jobs in the last 35 months of his administration.

Government

In government employment, excluding education, Biden and the Biden economy created more jobs and did so in all three levels of government: federal, state and local. The first 39 months of the Trump administration brought a combined increase of 313 thousand government jobs, with 80 thousand of those jobs in the federal government, not counting the post office. Under Biden the total increase was 879 thousand.

Trade, Transportation and Utility

Retail trade employment during the first 39 months of the pre-Pandemic Trump economy dropped 440 thousand jobs, but more jobs in the courier and messenger sub sector Trumps pre-Pandemic economy created 216 thousand new jobs. The result undoubtedly reflects the general decline of sales at the cashiers check out in exchange for home delivery of Internet sales. The combined increase of courier and messenger jobs and 366 thousand new jobs supporting home delivery in the warehouse and storage sub sector during the first 39 months of the Trump administration were large but not as large as a recovery of trade jobs, modal transportation and utility employment during the Biden economy. The combined trade, transportation, and utility sector, a.k.a. NAICS 40, had 345 thousand new jobs during the pre-Pandemic Trump years but 465 thousand new jobs during the post Pandemic Biden economy.

In those sub sector industries where remote work is possible Pandemic job losses were small and quick to recover. These were primarily in finance and banking, and the professions such as law, accounting, computing, engineering and various management consulting and research industries. Job gains in these sub sectors were comparable for Trump and Biden as, for example, in management and technical consulting services where there were 164 thousand new jobs during the 39 pre-Pandemic months of the Trump administration, but 142 thousand new jobs during the 35 post-Pandemic months of the Biden administration. The Trump economy did somewhat better in goods production – natural resources, construction manufacturing - in the pre-Pandemic period than the Biden economy in the post-Pandemic period: Trump 1.082 million jobs, Biden 811 thousand jobs.  It should be mentioned that goods production was 21.96 percent of establishment production in 1990 that has declined continuously to 13.58 percent by 2025, a decline of 8.38 percent in a decline that shows no sign of ending.

The superior job performance during the Biden economy came in part because of much higher job growth, but especially in the jobs of the future. New jobs will have to come in health care and education as they have been. Otherwise, replacement jobs for the millions of manufacturing jobs corporate America has moved abroad have been coming in leisure and hospitality and government service and will have to continue given remaining service industries continue to grow so slowly they have a declining share of national employment.

During his first term Trump liked to brag about the new jobs on the Bureau of Labor Statistics monthly jobs report and take credit for creating them. As his second term gets under way, he appears determined to enlarge the unemployed as fast as he can. For the new unemployed among us beware of ventilating politicians and union officials advising obedience to the “law.” Try hard to understand the significance of January 6.

The Vice President’s Job

The Vice President’s Job

Amendment Twelve of our U.S. Constitution defines the Vice Presidential office to be a person waiting to succeed as president, but for one reason: death of the President. We can excuse the founding fathers for wanting someone a heart beat away, as the saying goes, to become president given the primitive state of medicine and the opportunities for death in 1787. Still designating the next president in advance unmistakably resembles monarchy, or royal succession, not democracy. The founding fathers had nothing for their V-P to do, just like a British Prince, and so gave him, and lately her, a vote in the Senate in the event of a tie. As the office remains in 2025, the vice president gets a salary of $250,000 for a job that neither requires, nor allows, work defined in the Constitution.

From 1837 when Vice President Martin Van Buren succeeded Andrew Jackson until 1989 when Vice President George H.W. Bush succeeded Ronald Reagan, no vice president succeeded a president by election. Death, assassination and one resignation have given us six accidental presidents since 1877 that include Chester Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Gerald Ford. These six men, like all ambitious politicians, had to confront the reality that party bosses choose vice presidential candidates to "balance the ticket" as an aide to electing someone else. Once installed as vice president, they typically get assigned some empty task the President defines for them and then get shoved aside. They seldom give sign of independence and refuse to say anything controversial for fear of offending their President and jeopardizing a faint and evanescent hope of presidential office or a political career. Vice Presidents do too much of what they are told: Mike Pence to wit.

The vice-presidential office should be abolished. If we are a democracy we should prefer voting for all our presidents, but we should also make the best of what Amendment Twelve defines.  Our vice presidents have a unique place in American politics precisely because he or she lives a heart beat away and can become the president in an instant. That threat makes them hard to ignore if they do not choose to be ignored. Since they have no boss or defined political power and little or no future as a politician, they can and should get the attention they need to aggressively confront controversial matters suppressed or ignored by corporate America and the politicians they own and control. Democrats take note.

 

The Back to the Office Movement of 2025

The Back to the Office Movement of 2025

The motive for the Back to the Office movement touted by Trump and the Republicans comes to us as a legacy of slavery. Recall slaves worked as farm labor, domestic servants and gradually some of them as craftsmen trained by their owners to exploit as contract labor. Historian Ron Cherno reports George Washington hired out his surplus slaves.

The slaves of 1787 to 1860 made up a significant minority of the population in a country of small farmers, independent tradesmen but minimal manufacturing limited to textiles and some iron smelting. Before 1860 slaves were the working class given the white population primarily earned a living as farmers or self-employed entrepreneurs. Southern plantation owners needed a mass labor force to harvest cotton and tobacco, which concentrated employment among a limited number of wealthy employers. Where the modern corporation hires the working class for wages, the antebellum plantation owner had working class slaves paid-in-kind.

Recall slaves worked and lived under arbitrary rule in a system of forced labor; resistance brought immediate reprisal as physical abuse and corporal punishment from colonial times. These habits of arbitrary rule over slave labor have made it easy for America’s capitalists to expect obedience for the hired help long after slavery ended. It can be no surprise the south provides the greatest resistance to job rights and union organizing. The lingering effect of more than a century of arbitrary rule during slavery make it easy for contemporary capitalists to expect they have arbitrary authority over today’s employment and the right to devise various types of reprisals against working class demands for a measure of respect and the job rights to go with it. Slavery lives in the employer expectations of today.

The Back to the Office movement comes to us as an especially petty example of corporate contempt and class war politics. Recall how Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker had an easy time getting the angry working class to support his attack on school teachers as a lazy and overpaid group deserving wage cuts and union busting. Now we see how  Trump has an easy time getting his angry and contemptuous base to support the hardship and expense back to the office creates for government employees. The politics of contempt.

Since managers and supervisors have had laptop computers and the Internet to pressure employees to be available at home in the evening and on weekends for many years, the suggestion they must be at “work” 9 to 5 on weekdays appears especially idiotic. Commuting imposes financial costs on employees and also the time and energy squandered getting “there” that cannot be defended as good for productivity or profits. Never assume as economists like to do that corporate America wants to maximize profits; divided social classes generate inequality as a perk of the upper class.

America’s corporate autocrats have always known the arbitrary, abusive and demeaning use of authority directed down through a hierarchy to the farm fields, the shop floor, the cashiers check out, or the secretary’s desk brings anger and resistance from some, but fear and hesitation from others. Corporate America promotes these internal divisions when they look the other way and encourage or ignore the abuses of supervisors and managers. The more assertive will fight the abuses, while the timid and cowardly withdrawal or adopt the stance of their authoritarian employers. The historical record of union busting documents the deliberate use of intimidation and verbal deceit for dividing the working class.

Sowing division among the working class through dissension on the job has worked well as a continuous disruptive force in opposition to the working class and their political and economic solidarity. Journalist and author William Allen White wrote of the Republicans of the 1920’s era as “shocked to tears at anything that tore apart the identity of wealth with brains.” Such a view follows from an upper class hope for an acceptable justification for their wealth. Contrast that with today’s wealthy and well placed that delight in showing their contempt for the working class with a political campaign that includes Back to the Office.