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TOGETHER WITH
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Good morning and
shoutout to all readers commemorating their Height Day today (5/8).
Cherish it, because the people celebrating over the next few days will
likely end up more successful.
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Nasdaq
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13,752.24
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S&P
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4,232.60
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Dow
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34,777.76
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Bitcoin
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$57,429.84
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10-Year
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1.577%
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Roku
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$317.00
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*Stock data as of market close, cryptocurrency data as of 5:00pm ET.
Here's what these numbers mean.
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Markets: Just by looking at what
happened in the stock market yesterday, you wouldn’t know the jobs
report was close to a total disaster. The Dow and S&P hit all-time highs, while everyone’s watching dogecoin ahead of Elon Musk’s SNL appearance tonight (yes, a real sentence). Roku stock shot up after reporting blistering revenue growth in Q1.
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Giphy
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Yesterday’s April jobs report was more disappointing than a Starburst pack filled only with yellow.
Whereas economists had forecasted upwards of 1 million jobs added in April...the Labor Department said the US created just 266,000.
And the unemployment rate, which had been steadily dropping since last
May, ticked up from 6% to 6.1%. Those numbers shocked pretty much
everyone, given all the recent signs of a rapidly improving economy.
Digging into the numbers...
- Temporary-help employment lost 111,000 jobs, manufacturing 18,000, and retail 15,000.
- Travel and leisure continued to fuel the gains after getting TKO’d early in the pandemic, adding 331,000 jobs in April.
Big picture: The economy is still down more than 8 million jobs from pre-pandemic levels and 29% of unemployed Americans have now been out of work for at least a year.
What happened?
It’s not so
clear. What we do know is that there is no shortage of job openings in
certain industries like retail, manufacturing, and construction. So the
question economists are sorting out right now is why more people aren’t
going to work.
There are a few hypotheses...
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Covid reasons: Despite a blazing
vaccination rollout in the US, many people might still fear getting
infected with the virus at work. Plus, with some schools still opting
for remote learning, parents might be taking care of their kids instead
of job hunting.
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Skills mismatch: Perhaps the people looking for jobs don’t have the experience necessary to fill the types of jobs that are open.
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Enhanced unemployment benefits: This,
of course, is the most controversial hypothesis. Biden’s aid package
extended extra unemployment benefits through the summer, and Republicans
and many business owners have blamed the extra money for
disincentivizing work. After the jobs report was released, the US
Chamber of Commerce asked lawmakers to end the extra benefits.
Looking ahead...economists
hope this jobs report was just a bizarre one-off, like Michael Jordan
playing baseball. But President Biden said the labor market struggle bus
is evidence that the US economy needs his twin infrastructure bills to
return to full strength.
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Francis Scialabba
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In the US…the rate of vaccinations continues to decline. The US is averaging 2.09 million doses a day, a 21% decrease from the week before.
Around the world...enough
doses have been administered to fully vaccinate 8.1% of the global
population, but wealthier countries are vaccinating their citizens at a
rate 25x faster than lower income countries.
The latest headlines
Getting the green light: The WHO authorized
China’s Sinopharm vaccine for emergency use, the sixth vaccine to have
gotten a stamp of approval from the organization. Pfizer-BioNTech became
the first vaccine maker to apply for full FDA approval on top of
emergency use.
Vaccine incentives: States are pulling out their bag of tricks
to spur more demand for vaccinations. West Virginia is offering young
adults a $100 savings bond in exchange for a shot, Maryland will give
state workers $100, and NJ, which is already running a “shot and a beer”
program, is considering handing out cash.
+ Further reading: How to vaccinate the world Part 1 and Part 2.
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Xinhua/Guo Cheng via Getty Images
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Debris from the Chinese rocket Long March-5B are expected to fall back to Earth
this weekend, just over a week after it was launched into space. The
craft’s husk is almost 100 feet long, and will be one of the largest
objects to ever come back into the planet’s atmosphere on an
uncontrolled reentry.
This type of
reentry is like ordering a swimsuit you saw on TikTok: There’s no way
of knowing what you’re going to get. Scientists say there’s a 32-hour
window over the weekend when it could hit, but aren’t sure where.
There’s only a small chance of it hurting a person, but with some close
calls like a huge piece
of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket ending up on a Washington farm in April,
experts are calling the actions of China’s space program irresponsible.
Big picture:
With lax international laws around space debris, countries can do
things like send rockets into space and cause a minor freak out.
Jonathan McDowell of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
told the WaPo, “What there isn’t at the moment is what I call a
‘reckless driving law.’ You only get to complain if it actually
crashes.”
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While you
know Amazon as the company who sells _____ (insert pretty much anything
here), their employees know them as a company who offers both
comprehensive benefits and upward career trajectories.
For starters, Amazon offers its employees a starting pay of at least $15 per hour—that’s more than double the federal minimum wage—as well as comprehensive benefits like health insurance, paid leave, and ways to save for the future.
But Amazon
doesn’t just stop at “for starters.” They also provide technical
upskilling training programs to those interested in honing their
technical know-how in the workplace—at Amazon or wherever their careers
take them next.
In fact,
Amazon is dedicating more than $700 million to provide 100,000 employees
with access to training programs by 2025. That’s a lotta new skillz
that the world needs.
Read more about all the benefits Amazon believes in, right here.
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Brian Killian/Getty Images
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Stat: About 45% of store openings announced so far this year by large retail chains are dollar stores, CNN Business reports. Dollar General accounts for almost a third by itself.
Quote: “My friends are leaving California.”
Caitlyn Jenner, speaking to Fox News, has a point: In 2020, California’s population declined for the first time in the state’s recorded history.
Read: How much energy does bitcoin actually consume? (Harvard Business Review)
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SNL/NBC
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Elon Musk hosts SNL tonight, and last weekend he took to Twitter to crowdsource
some sketch ideas for the show. And while “Irony Man” is...a fine
suggestion, we think some of the best ways to showcase the Technoking’s
subtle, grounded performance style would be to just rewrite some of the
moments in Musk’s life that have felt like SNL sketches:
When he sold flamethrowers.
In a promotional stunt to sell more hats, Musk’s tunnel construction
company, The Boring Company, introduced “Not-A-Flamethrower” (the
product’s official name) and it sold out in five days. In the SNL version, Bill Hader’s Stefon would be on “Weekend Update” discussing his favorite places to use the flamethrower.
When he released a song about Harambe. It’s not easy to listen to, but maybe Lonely Island could do something with it?
When he had a Tesla designer named Franz throw a metal ball at a Cybertruck window...and it shattered. It’s SNL’s
duty to give us interviews with everyone involved in this incident.
Someone in the audience, Franz, and of course the truck itself. All
played by Melissa Villaseñor.
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The Texas House of Representatives passed a voting bill opposed by more than 50 companies and business groups on the grounds that it curbs voting access.
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Elon Musk’s statements
around Tesla’s driverless tech don’t always “match engineering
reality,” the company’s director of Autopilot software told the
California DMV.
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Goldman Sachs’s cryptocurrency trading desk is officially up and running.
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NBC, CBS, ABC, and Fox will broadcast soccer games on the same weekend for the first time ever.
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The US can’t just flip a switch and make more chips to address the shortage.
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Mow money. Graze
is the autonomous lawnmower disrupting the $100 billion commercial
landscaping industry. And if you can't believe it, they're letting you
invest in this grass game changer—they've already got $19 million in
preorders. Invest in Graze today.*
The Michelin star of wine subscriptions. Wine Access
has teamed up with one, two, and three-starred restaurants featured in
the MICHELIN® Guide to curate an exclusive tour of the world’s best
wines. Reserve your spot today.*
Fantasy Investing Competition: Our fantasy stock market competition is almost full, so secure your spot today.
As a reminder, you get $100,000 of fake money to spend on any stock or
crypto you want, and the participants with the biggest portfolios at the
end will receive a whole lot of Brew swag. It officially kicks off at
the opening bell on Monday.
Conversation starters:
*This is sponsored advertising content
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Francis Scialabba
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Back by popular demand...Morning Brew Minis! As always, you can take your pick of difficulty:
Happy puzzling. And don't forget you can submit full-size crosswords as well. Read up on our submission guidelines here. | |
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| ADVERTISEMENT |
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WATCH: Joe Biden Announces New Executive Actions on Gun Control
Mask Mandates Promote Servitude, Not Safety
Eurasian Anti-West Alliance Didn’t Have to Happen
Frank Luntz Blames Tucker Carlson’s Criticism On Presidential Aspirations
Democrats are hoping Americans stop
paying attention to growing allegations of sexual misconduct against one
of the party’s biggest names.
But one woman is determined to make sure that is not the case.
Now a sex scandal involving a top Democrat blew up in Nancy Pelosi’s face with this comment.
Read and react... May 8th, 2021
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