Slow News Day ... And Then This -- US Payrolls Hit A Record High; Wages Exceed Forecast; Average Weekly Hours Edged Lower To 34.3 -- August 2, 2019

From CNBC:

• the Labor Department reports that payrolls increased 164,000 during July, just 1,000 below the 165,000 Dow Jones forecast
• wages increased 3.2% year over year, topping expectations by one-tenth of a percentage point
• average weekly hours edged lower to 34.3. The total labor force came in at a record-high 163.4 million (fake news: INC implies the opposite -- that Americans are working longer; Americans working longer: it's a meme)

Later we will see record employment numbers for Asians, African-Americans, and those working for Democrat-nominating campaigns, some of whom are being paid $15/hour. What a great country. 

******************************

Flashback

Impact of ObamaCare.

Most-viewed post at the blog on this subject: far-reaching impact of ObamaCare, dated March 13, 2013. At that post, back in 2013, I wrote:

Regular readers know that the blog was one of the first to note that until ObamaCare came along, the US had no definition or regulation or whatever for "an official work week" as did France. But with ObamaCare, the "official" work week for all companies with more than 50 employees* has now been defined as 30 hours by the government.**

* Incidentally, due to the quirkiness of the law, the IRS defines full-time employment, not the employer. If an employer has 100 workers each working 20 hours/week, the employer thinks she has 100 part-time workers and not subject to ObamaCare.  Wrong. The IRS divides the total number of hours worked by these 100 employees (in this case, 2,000 hours) by 120, the number of 30 hours in a 4-week period. 2,000/120 = 17. The employer has the equivalent of 17 full-time workers for ObamaCare purposes. If this is the entire workforce, I do not know if the employer is required to provide ObamaCare health insurance. Does the employer with 100 employees (though all "part-time" by the employers' definition) exceed the 50-employee threshold, or does the IRS "see" only 17 employees. My hunch is that the employer exceeds the 50-employee threshold with 100 employees, albeit all working under 20 hours, and that she will have to provide health care for "17-full-time-equivalents."  [Disclaimer/update, August 2, 2019: the math may be wrong, but the point should be well-taken. I may have used the wrong numerator in the example above; if the correct numerator is 8,000, then the "17 employees" becomes 66 employees, which in hindsight makes more sense. The employer thinks she has 100 part-time employees; the IRS says she has the equivalent of 66 full-time employees for whom she must provide health care insurance.]

**  The 30-hour threshold has other ramifications also. It is only a matter of time before employers will be required to pay overtime for any employee working longer than 30 hours/week, the "official" definition of full-time employment. This will end up in courts before it's all over.  

And so we see it. Companies are hiring more folks than ever, but the average weekly hours continue to edge downward.

There may be myriad reasons for the average number of jobs edging downward but ...

On another note: "uneducated" or perhaps more politically correct, "under-informed" low-wage earners will fall for / be taken in by the demagogic "$15/hour" mantra but, in fact, the hourly wage is irrelevant. It is the weekly, or monthly, or yearly income that matters. It is the benefits that matter. It is the work conditions that matter. The demagogic "$15/hour" serves only to help someone get elected, or re-elected.

And $15/hour is completely irrelevant if one does not have a job in the first place.

**********************************

The Fine Art And Culture Page

I'm spending the afternoon in the cultural district of Ft Worth. It was a "pop-up" afternoon -- all of a sudden I found no one at home and noted that I have no Uber-driving responsibilities until this evening. I was free for eight hours.

So, I quickly got in the car, filled up with really inexpensive gasoline (thank you, Mr Trump) and high-tailed it down TX-121 for 20.5 miles to get to the Kimbell Art Museum.

I arrived much earlier than expected so I had time to walk across the street to have lunch and watch the National Cutting Horse Association "nationals" at Will Rogers Memorial Coliseum. The "nationals" at this web page:

The Summer Cutting Spectacular is held in July and is the final leg of the NCHA Triple Crown of Cutting and is contested over 20 days.

It features the NCHA Derby for 4-year-olds, and the NCHA Classic Challenge for 5/6-year-olds and offers a purse of almost $2 million.

As the third jewel in the NCHA Triple Crown, the NCHA Derby has seen just three Open horses, and one Non-Pro horse claims the Triple Crown title.

This weekend will be the finals and the end so today was very, very quiet. Entrance free for spectators: free. Several upscale vendors provided lunch for very reasonable prices. I had Italian.

I've never seen such a relaxing competition. There is no crowd noise whatsoever. Can't spook the cattle.

One just sits on incredibly comfortable (padded) seats, enjoying lunch and drink and watching "cowboys" and "cowgirls" do their thing. The "warm-up" area had twelve riders getting ready: eight women riders and four men. Beautiful horses, and everyone with their best and most colorful blankets and saddles. Hardly a word from the arena. Mostly hand signals. No dogs. Just horses and yearlings while I was there. Incredibly relaxing. It's the sort of place one would like to be all day: bring a book, read, and watch the horses. I could have sat in box seats among the rich and famous but they would have soon found out I was an outsider -- a cowboy hat would have helped.

Tomorrow evening, the dinner is free. What a great country. I'm half expecting George W. Bush to make a surprise appearance. LOL. Now that would be cool.

An example:


After the "rodeo," I walked back across the street to visit the Kimbell Art Museum, my original destination. The Kimbell is "hosting" the second of two in a series of Monet showings, co-sponsored by the Fine Art Museum of San Francisco.

The two fine arts museums, the San Francisco and the Kimbell, have a long and wonderful relationship. The first in their recent Monet series, "The Early Years" was so much better but that's only because May and I had not seen many of Monet's early paintings.

"The Late Years" could have been titled "Water Lilies." That's about all they had. I've seen the water lilies so many times in Paris I really don't need to seem them again. However, what makes it most enjoyable is to see where these exhibition paintings generally hang. The paintings have come from around the world, including one from Japan. Most are from the Monet museum in Paris, which I believe may have been built especially for Monet's water lilies, but don't quote me on that. Easy enough to fact check.

There is one from the Portland Art Museum:

His iconic Japanese Footbridge is on display. It is owned by The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC:

This may have been the highlight of the exhibit. I've seen this one so many times in books it's nice to see it "in person." I would imagine it's priceless.