The economy is still roaring, and the American public is still disheartened.
My theory of this rather peculiar phenomenon is that barely economy-attentive Americans may not watch Fox News, but they have friends and family who do watch Fox News. The latter — being even less informed than people who watch no news at all; nearly the same as MSNBC viewers and talk-radio listeners — tell the former that the American economy is in hell's handbasket and the only thing that can pull us out is to vote for economically illiterate Republicans.
Economic models do little better. ABC News, this morning: "The report defied expectations of a hiring slowdown as the Federal Reserve carries out a fight against inflation." Reuters, last night: "U.S. job growth likely slowed in July, but the pace was probably strong enough to keep the unemployment rate at 3.6% for a fifth straight month." Yahoo News, also last night: "The Labor Department's closely watched employment report on Friday is expected to paint a picture of an economy muddling through."
Notwithstanding assorted models' job-market mispredictions, the broadcasting, still-mostly Trumpian millionaires at the Murdoch Farm will claw around for the gloomiest possible takes, not only on the jobs report, but the economy in general. Food prices! Gas Prices! Cudités prices! Tax hikes!
As opposed to reality. (Graph, Yahoo Finance.)
The Washington Post reports that employment gains arrived in leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, architecture and engineering, technical consulting, scientific research and development, healthcare, government, construction, manufacturing, and "even" mining. In other words, everywhere.
Fox News, however, will markedly set the tone. Aside from one's ill-informed relatives and friends, we know that restaurants, bars, and waiting rooms of all sorts tend to put Fox on the wall, which then ripples throughout the masses, brainwashing many a man and woman.