Welcome to a wild card jobs day — Manchin rips Powell — Real talk on Fed Chair fight

From: POLITICO's Morning Money - Friday Aug 06,2021 12:04 pm
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By Ben White

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Quick Fix

Welcome to jobs day — Bit of a wild card for this morning’s July jobs report. Expectations remain high at 870K after 850K in June and unemployment unchanged at 5.7 percent. But ADP came in super weak. Thursday’s jobless claims, however, looked better suggesting the Delta variant may not be crushing the labor market yet.

July’s numbers will give a pretty good indication of the trend. But they could be heavily skewed by seasonal adjustments (more below). And the most critical data won’t come until the fall as extra Covid benefits fully run out and more people (presumably) rejoin the labor force.

Moody’s Mark Zandi emails : “We should get another strong employment report for July, with employment increasing by 650,000 jobs and unemployment declining to 5.6%. There will be another outsized increase in education and leisure and hospitality jobs. …

“There are very large seasonal adjustments in July, which could result in a much bigger increase in jobs - over a million jobs wouldn't be a big surprise. With schools not reducing payrolls in July as they typically do - as schools have been teaching online - the seasonal adjustment will push up seasonally adjusted employment in K-12 education”

Pantheon’s Ian Shepherdson from the beach: “The key advance indicator of private payrolls in recent months has been the path of employment captured by Homebase … consistent with unadjusted private payrolls rising by about 500K …

“Assuming the seasonal factor is unchanged from July last year, that implies seasonally adjusted private payrolls rose by some 550K …

"We're not surprised that payroll growth remains relatively sluggish, despite the reopening of the economy. If our July forecast is right, payrolls will be some 9.75 million short of the level implied by the pre-Covid trend. But labor supply remains constrained”

GOOD FRIDAY MORNING — Happy weekend all! Email me on bwhite@politico.com and follow me on Twitter @morningmoneyben.

 

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Driving the Day

MORE JOBS DAY PREP — Via Goldman Sachs: “We estimate nonfarm payrolls rose 1,150k in July, above consensus of +870k. Labor supply constraints eased further due to the wind-down of federal unemployment top-ups in some states and the addition of over 2 million youth job seekers in June and July.

"Coupled with very strong labor demand and continued progress on vaccinations and reopening, we believe job growth picked up further in the month. We also note little impact on dining activity in response to the Delta variant, even in highly-impacted states.”

MANCHIN SLAMS POWELL IN SURPRISING REUBKE — Our Victoria Guida: “Sen. Joe Manchin … urged Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to pare back economic stimulus to avoid stoking inflation, in a rare rebuke of the central bank by a Democratic lawmaker.

“The West Virginia senator said in a letter to Powell that he is ‘increasingly alarmed’ that the Fed continues to buy $120 billion in U.S. government debt and mortgage-backed securities each month even after Congress injected trillions of dollars of aid into the economy during the pandemic. The purchases help keep borrowing costs low as the Fed tries to coax the economy into full recovery.

“Manchin's letter — the first example of a congressional Democrat urging the Fed to reverse course on current easy money policies — came as President Joe Biden weighed whether to reappoint Powell as chair of the central bank. It signaled potential opposition to Powell from the moderate wing of the party.”

REAL TALK — The alternative to Powell is almost certainly Fed governor and former senior Treasury official Lael Brainard. And she is a Democrat who will certainly not be any more hawkish than Powell and presumably less so. So no reason for Manchin to prefer her to the current Chair.

And if Biden dumps Powell for Brainard he’s likely going to need every vote for her confirmation, including Manchin. The other path is getting a relatively easy bi-partisan vote for Powell’s renomination. But that would anger progressives and other Democrats eager for the president to get his own pick at the top of central bank.

CUOMO TO COOPERATE BUT NOT QUIT — Our Bill Mahoney: “Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office says it will cooperate with a request from the state Assembly for evidence as part of its impeachment probe, perhaps the clearest sign yet that the governor has no plans to resign soon despite mounting calls for him to quit. …

“Earlier on Thursday, the Assembly’s Judiciary Committee officially warned Cuomo that its impeachment investigation has almost concluded. It gave him until Aug. 13 to produce any final evidence that he wishes to share.”

WHITE HOUSE NOT LIKELY TO EXTEND BENEFITS — Our Eleanor Mueller and Laura Barrón-López: “The White House and congressional Democrats will likely not pursue extending an emergency unemployment insurance program that gave workers an extra $300 a week past its September deadline, despite the coronavirus Delta variant prompting additional workplace and public restrictions.

“‘The $300 boost to unemployment insurance has been an important emergency lifeline for workers and families as Americans have gotten vaccinated in greater numbers,’ a White House official told POLITICO. ‘This boost was always intended to be temporary and it is scheduled to expire in early September.’”

Fly Around

BIDEN'S LATEST BANK COP CANDIDATE IS FINANCE INDUSTRY CRITIC — Our Victoria Guida: “Cornell Law School professor Saule Omarova, who has called for a more extensive government role in providing financial services, is a contender for a top bank regulatory job in the Biden administration, according to a person familiar with the discussions.

“Omarova, who declined to comment, is the first name to publicly emerge in months as a potential nominee to lead the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency … Biden’s initial leading candidate — former Treasury official Michael Barr — was not nominated after his consideration triggered a backlash from progressive Democrats

PORTMAN OPEN TO CRYPTO TAX CHANGES — Our Kellie Mejdrich: “Sen. Rob Portman … said he agreed with lawmakers pushing to clarify cryptocurrency tax provisions in the Senate's bipartisan infrastructure bill and called for their amendment to get a vote.

“The Ohio Republican — who had earlier defended crypto tax reporting proposals in the bill — cited concerns raised by Senate Finance Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) with Sens. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), who offered an amendment Wednesday to scale back the requirements.”

GOP LOOKS TO ADD DEFENSE MONEY — Our Connor O’Brien: “Top Senate Republicans are looking to add more than $50 billion in defense funding to bipartisan infrastructure legislation to tackle overdue repairs and upgrade efforts at shipyards, depots, test ranges and defense laboratories.

“Senate Appropriations ranking member Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) has filed an amendment to the infrastructure package to boost defense funding, which was obtained by POLITICO.

He's joined by Senate Armed Services ranking member Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) and Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.). The Republican defense hawks' effort is the largest, and most detailed, proposal for defense money in an infrastructure bill so far.”

CBO SAYS BILL WOULD ADD $256B TO DEFICIT — Via Reuters: “The bipartisan Senate infrastructure bill would add $256 billion to budget deficits over a decade, the Congressional Budget Office estimated Thursday.

“The report from the nonpartisan agency did not take into account potential revenue increases created by economic growth. As it stands, the CBO said the bill, which does not include tax increases, would generate about $50 billion in revenue. Senators who crafted the plan had said it would be fully paid for through a range of sources including repurposed coronavirus relief funds, unused unemployment insurance aid and economic activity generated by the investments.”

Want to know more about what’s in the infrastructure agreement? Pro Premium s can read our Pro Bill Analysis of the measure.

CHINESE CORPORATE CRACKDOWN JUST GETTING STARTED — WSJ’s Jing Yang, Keith Zhai and Quentin Webb: “In recent months, China has blown up what would have been the world’s largest initial public offering, launched probes into some of its biggest technology companies, and wiped out more than $1 trillion in market value while investors scramble for cover.

“There are many signs it isn’t over yet. Investors, analysts and company executives believe the government is just getting started in its push to realign the relationship between private business and the state, with a goal of ensuring companies do more to serve the Communist Party’s economic, social and national-security concerns.”

 

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