On Friday, CNBC’s “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer appeared on the network’s “Squawk Box” to discuss the latest unemployment numbers released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) for the month of November.
“Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 266,000 in November. Job growth has averaged 180,000 per month thus far in 2019, compared with an average monthly gain of 223,000 in 2018. In November, notable job gains occurred in health care and in professional and technical services,” reports BLS.
The bureau also noted that the “seasonally adjusted” unemployment rate dipped from 3.6% in October to 3.5% in November. Last year (November 2018), the unemployment rate was 3.7% “adjusted.”
Additionally, average hourly earnings for “all employees on private nonfarm payrolls” are up 86 cents from November 2018 ($27.43 to $28.29).
After noting that there was “growth with not very much inflation,” Cramer stated that he wished people “were making more money.”
He then mentioned cable news bias pertaining to the economy:
There’s a fellow by the name of Michael Cembalest … he is the Chairman of Market and Investment Strategy at J.P. Morgan. He came up with a list of what the cable companies – CNN, [MSNBC] – what do they cover. 16th is positive economic news. All the rest of them are negative. So, you know what’s going on here, Joe. People don’t want to say good things, and this is the best number I’ve ever seen in my life!
Host Joe Kernan then asked Cramer “how can it last forever?”
Cramer replied, speaking directly about the ongoing trade war with China:
It has to go up, Joe, because when we win the trade war, which you now know we’re going to win now because we have the better numbers, then they’re going to have to put jobs here. That’s what they’re going to have to do. And we’re not even talking about that yet. In the end, the Chinese are going to have to put jobs here. Because this thing is – the president can walk away from the table with this number.
After Kernan stated that Americans won’t “see that written or said anywhere,” Cramer responded, saying the “truth sets people free.”
Cramer added:
You can’t contradict that these are the best numbers of our lives. … I don’t see inflation; I don’t see recession. 50 years ago that number was a curse, now it’s a blessing. And you know something, Joe? It doesn’t matter whether you hate [Trump] or like him, these are real numbers.
On Wednesday, J.P. Morgan’s Michael Cembalest published a piece covering a variety of finial topics. In the piece, as Cramer stated on “Squawk Box,” Cembalest charted the coverage of four cable news shows (CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” and “Cuomo Prime Time,” and MSNBC’s “Rachel Maddow Show” and “Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell”) over the course of one year (September 2018 – September 2019).
What Cembalest and his team found was that “positive economic news” came in 16th place under the “number of times [a] topic [was] discussed in depth” metric, below the following:
Mueller investigation/Russian interference
Trump is inept/erratic/mendacious/biased
Asylum and immigration
Trump Administration corruption
Presidential politics
Supreme Court
Natural disasters
Gun violence
International relations
Senate/Governors Races
North Korea
Trade war
Data privacy
Climate change
Opioids and prescription drug pricing
This isn’t surprising to anyone who follows this type of thing closely. As The Daily Wire previously reported:
According to a report from the Media Research Center (MRC), from January 2017 through December 2018, 90% of the coverage of President Trump from the major network evening news programs (ABC, CBS, NBC) has been negative, while just 10% has been positive. The analysis excludes “neutral statements.”
MRC states: “To determine the spin of news coverage, our analysts tallied all explicitly evaluative statements about the President or his administration from either reporters, anchors or non-partisan sources such as experts or voters. Evaluations from partisan sources, as well as neutral statements, were not included.”
Of the 858 minutes spent by the big three networks’ evening newscasts discussing the Trump/Russia collusion story in 2018, 98% was “negative,” according to the MRC analysis. Of the 643 minutes covering immigration and the border, 94% was “negative.” The least negative of the big five “Trump-bashing” stories that received hundreds of minutes of airtime pertained to North Korea (410 minutes; 80% “negative”).