Jobs, Taxes and…
Politics.
Economic News This Week
The national jobs numbers are out for December and the winner is… your employee – again.
199,000 new jobs were added in December and wages in December were 4.7% higher than a year ago. Maybe not yours, but other peoples’ wages were.
This brought the unemployment rate down to 3.9%. For most years, that would be a record low, except the US had that for most of 2019. That seems like a distant memory…
The strong unemployment rate offset the weaker than expected new job growth. For some reason, everyone had expected that more than 400,000 new jobs would be created, but Omicron had other plans.
Overall, 2021 was a good year for job growth, with the US adding 6.4 million jobs, continuing to claw back the total job loss of about 10 million in 2020. Keep in mind, those 10 million jobs went away in a 30-day period in 2020. Poof!
For new jobs this month, Leisure and Hospitality led the way with 53,000 jobs added – yay!
Leisure and Hospitality are still down 1.2 million jobs from the start of the pandemic – boo!
That really gives you an idea of the impact of the pandemic on travel and tourism – those folks were hammered.
Only Transportation and Warehousing have had a net gain (with a little bit of Financial Activities) since everything went to hell in a handbasket.
T&W has gained 218,000 jobs and Financial Activities 44,000 since February 2020. Those are the only two sectors that are ahead of February 2020. I guess that makes those categories almost bulletproof.
Some Tax Payer Trivia from the IRS
What’s it take to get into the Top 1% of income earners? Adjusted Gross Income (per your tax return) of $546,434. Not too shabby. However, those One Percenters are not carrying as much weight as before, paying only 38.77% of all taxes in 2019 vs. 40.08% in 2018. Slackers.
The highest 5% paid 59.44% of all taxes with earnings greater than $221,572.
Finally, the Top 10% with AGIs of $154,589 account for 70.81% of all taxes paid.
And if it helps, mileage expense is 58.5 cents/mile for 2022.
Sacramento Shorts – so named because we keep taking it in the shorts from Sacramento
Never wanting to hold anyone accountable, Sacramento is proposing State Senate Bill 830 that will fund public schools based on enrollment, NOT attendance.
Presently, if a school district wants funding, students have to attend class; they get paid for the butts in the seats.
What is being proposed is that the district will receive the funding based purely on enrollment; you don’t have to show up. Nice. That’s like you hiring someone and continuing to pay them regardless of whether they show up or not. It really is. Oh, and don’t forget the participation award.
Look who’s leaving the California Assembly: Lorena Gonzalez of San Diego. That’s a little too late for most business owners.
Ms. Gonzalez was the author of Assembly Bill 5, the legislation that severely curtailed how a contract worker was classified. This had the effect of making almost all contract workers being defined as employees, effectively putting many of them out of work – and eligible to form a union…
The largest impact was on Lyft and Uber drivers but the damage was widespread, spawning subsequent bills to “clarify” which workers were to be spared, depending on how good your industry lobbyist was.
Ms. Gonzalez is leaving her political career to be the CEO of… the California Labor Federation!!. Hmmm. I wonder which category contributed the most of the $5,172,261 she received since 2013.
Lawyers and Lobbyists contributed $84,254. That doesn’t seem too bad.
Labor has contributed $1,902,282. Oh, my. It looks like the job announcement was merely a formality.
If you are like most families I know, omicron was the new side dish at Christmas dinner; in my family it was the main dish, replacing the roast beast that never got served. Now that you have had nature’s booster, go out and help rebuild the Leisure and Hospitality portion of the economy; they need it. Your T-Cells are super annoyed that your taste buds have no idea what you’re eating and your nose literally cannot smell the coffee, so any virus coming into your system doesn’t stand a chance.
Stay well, and keep the Nyquil handy.
