 And welcome back to News On. I'm Miranda Kahn. Disappointing August job numbers in this morning major, only 235,000 jobs created versus, oh, I don't know, expected 720,000 by economists. Kind of a wide margin there. Job creation for August was obviously a huge disappointment with the economy adding just, again, 235,000 positions. Kind of a surveyed by Dow Jones have been longing or been looking for twice that number. Joining us now to talk about the economic impact and the reasons for this job earnings report is Melissa Armo, founder of Stock Swoosh. Thank you so much for joining us here on this Friday. That's a big difference. How could they be so off? It's a huge difference. And I think it really just pinpoints the problem that we're going to have going forward into the end of 2021. We have to get people back to work because of all the stimulus that the government's been pumping into the system. People are choosing not to work. Now remember today is the expiration of that extra $300 federal stimulus for the unemployment benefits. We'll see if that forces people to go back to work into the end of this year. The number was so far off the margin. I'm shocked that the market isn't crashing right now. We were up in the pre-market this morning and then we ended up opening lower. And right now going into a long three-day weekend for the stock market, it's just kind of sidelining here. Overall, the market is just looking for the Fed to continue to keep rates lower and for the government to keep pumping stimulus in. It's like we're rising, rising, rising, but at some point we're going to fall off a cliff if people don't get back to work. This can't go on forever with people not working. Yeah, you mentioned those federal benefits. Those are expiring. The president did decide not to extend those. We also talked about we've been keeping a close track on the eviction moratorium. Remember that we were talking about it earlier with Dr. Wendy Patrick, but the CDC trying to extend that. The Supreme Court said you don't have the legal authority to do that. That that is an act that needs to be done by legislators and not the CDC. But that isn't stopping New York Governor Heather Huckle looking to extend that eviction moratorium in her particular state. But overall, those benefits are expiring. The eviction moratorium ended. And now you have this job, jobs report, which is devastating, not even close. I mean, not like they were off by like 50,000. We're talking nowhere near what they expected. So what does that mean for the viewers at home that are going to be taking Monday off Labor Day? What does that mean for the overall state of the economy right now? Where do you see us headed in the next three to six months? Remember, the stock market does not always go toe to toe with the economy. The market right now is bullish. If people are in stocks and they're invested and they're close to retirement, they're up. The market's had a nice rally since the bounce a year ago, plus from COVID, they may want to take profits. As far as the economy goes, we saw today that dip. And having that terrible jobs number is not a good sign for the economy. Again, the market and the economy do not always go together. So you could have a family economy into the next four months of the year and the market could still write up. But eventually it's going to start to match up. Well, you will see the effects in the stock market if the economy does not continue adding jobs. And it's hard to say because you look at this and you say we're adding jobs every month. But really, these are just jobs that we lost from COVID. It's not like the jobs that were added during President Trump's term in office. Remember, the unemployment number kept going lower and lower and lower. We had almost a full employment before COVID. So he had actually increased the benefits of not only a bullish market, but you had a really good economy low unemployment working. Well, the only positive thing that took away from this jobs number from the data today was you had wages go up about a half a percent. But unfortunately, the half a percent increase in wages does not cover the cost of the inflation and in prices we're seeing right now in gas and food. Well, it's great that people are earning more. And part of this is because employers are having trouble getting people to get back to work. So they're having to pay them more. But it's not covering the cost of inflation. The Biden administration keeps the inflation temporary. I just don't see it that way. If people don't get back to work, if we don't get truckers on the road to deliver the goods, you're not going to have cost of the goods go down. Right, and we've already talked about it on this program and other programs on this network about the cost. Robin Byro, who is a Democrat, who often comes on with you, has talked about the cost of lumber. It being, what, three times, four times more than what it used to be? Everybody knows their gas tank has gone up. People check their grocery bills. They know that's gone up. The president has asked foreign oil to increase. OPEC has denied or has decided not to do that. Meanwhile, we've shut down pipelines here. And you're in New York and we've been seeing these images and just mind-blowing of what this storm has left behind. Again, we're talking the fifth largest hurricane to strike the U.S. And what's so interesting about this particular storm, I've covered several hurricanes. But to see a hurricane have this much widespread damage, all the way from the south, which we were talking about in Louisiana, where the president is going today, all the way up to where you are in New York. I mean, we've seen these subway stations completely immersed in water. They're saying this could be one of the most costly storms ever to strike the U.S. Never mind that it's the fifth largest hurricane. And so there you have, we mentioned earlier, Democrat Joe Manchin wanting Democrats, the only one, to hold off that three-and-a-half trillion-dollar spending bill that they've been wanting to the reconciliation bill say, maybe we need to pause a little bit. In your opinion, I'm sure you agree with that, but what's the likelihood of that actually happening and what do you think the economic impact of this storm is going to have on our country? Because whether you live there or not, we're all affected. Right. I think Nancy Pelosi is going to try to push forward after the Labor Day holiday with that 3.5 trillion-dollar stimulus bill. The only reason it was really put on hold when you think of it is they checked out for vacations in... I'm talking about Congress in August, and because Afghanistan was at the forefront, so they put that on the back burner. But that is the number one thing that Speaker Pelosi is going to try to push through in the fall. And we're going to try to get Joe Manchin back on board with that. The news cycle goes so fast right now. The fact that we were talking about the tragedy in Afghanistan and the 13 people that died a week ago, and now the news media is acting like it didn't even happen, or the Biden administration. The fact is that's still happening. That was a terrible, terrible disaster, in my opinion. They want to flip the page right away and talk about this great stimulus bill. I don't think it's a great stimulus bill. Only a small piece of that is about infrastructure. And I've been feeling that Pelosi is going to try to push it through. And I don't even know how the market's going to react to that. Because, again, it's pumping more stimulus money into the system. And it's going to increase taxes. How can that possibly be good for anyone? They say it's not going to hurt people that make under $400,000 a year, but I don't believe that for a second. As far as the devastation in New York from Hurricane Ida and the other places, we got a lot of rain. And the problem is in New York, we got a lot of rain really fast. So like the storm hit kind of in the afternoon, and it was over by the morning, but it was just, it was like you just felt like the sky fell poured buckets of water into the sky onto the floor. And we didn't have the drainage for it. And I think that's the problem going forward in New York. They got to do better within your drainage. It's specifically with the subway system. It's a disaster every time it rains in the subway. And unfortunately, I think around 14 people died in New York. And overall, it was like over 40 cross-country ride, which is really terrible. We had flooding in my building. I live up high. There wasn't any damage in my building. But I'm sure that this will increase the cost of flood insurance in certain areas in New York. Because if you're at a low level without the drainage, there was water pretty much everywhere in the city. And it wasn't even drivable. Yeah. I mean, we can see that right now. I mean, you can see it on your screen. That looks like a lake. And that's actually a town. That's a city right there. There's the subway station that you can see on your screen. Just devastating to see that. We're going to continue to monitor the situation. We're going to have another update with Weather Nation coming up on that. I'm glad to hear that you're OK. Not happy to hear about the economy. But we are going to stay on top of that. And also, on the situation in Afghanistan, because reportedly 26 students from California are still there. We did not forget about them. We're going to continue to stay on top of this story, unlike some of the other outlets that people have been watching. So don't you worry about that. We definitely will. Melissa, thank you so much for joining. What'd you say? I said get them home, Miranda. Yeah. I wish. I wish I had the power to do so. I really do. But you know what? We make odd things. Beautiful things happen all the time at this network. So, Melissa, thank you so much for joining us. Hope you are able to enjoy your Labor Day holiday, although you'll probably be busy working knowing you. Happy Labor Day. Happy Labor Day. Take care. Coming up, we're going to, as I mentioned, have an update on Ida's effect next.