By Rick Manning
America has gone through a lot since Labor Day 2019.
Hurricanes, the Chinese-originated virus, economic shutdowns, torching of cities, murder hornets, communist driven riots, Rachel Maddow ramblings, earthquakes, you name it and it appears to have happened in the past year.
It has been so bad, that you can almost understand why Joe Biden cannot remember any of it.
But the truth is America still stands for freedom. We are still the shining beacon on a hill that President Reagan alluded to in the 1980s. America is worth fighting for and we are the nation that others aspire to be.
This Labor Day, we are five months into the most incredible re-employment cycle in history. We all know that in order to “flatten the curve” and allow our nation’s health care providers breathing room so they would have the supplies and bed space to meet the little present China created for the world, the job market was intentionally tanked. The President moved rapidly to help allow employers to keep people on payrolls through emergency loans, while providing enhanced unemployment benefits and direct payment checks to keep the nation out of a deep depression.
Even with this, approximately 23 million Americans found themselves on unemployment due to the China virus shutdown by May of this year.
As you undoubtedly remember, before the virus, in February, the number of unemployed was at historic lows with fewer people unemployed than at any time since January of 2001. That was before George W. Bush became president.
Fortunately, Donald Trump truly is a jobs president.
Because of his laser focus on creating conditions where jobs are plentiful, he led the way to re-opening America and since the valley in April, more Americans have left the unemployment rolls than the entire population of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the fifth largest state in the country.
That’s 13.8 million of our friends and neighbors who have found their way back to working to achieve their American dream, and the unemployment rate has dropped to 8.4 percent.
There is still a long way to go before we get back to historically low numbers of people who want a job not being employed, but the incredible number of people who are back in control of their own futures and not at the mercy of D.C. and state politicians and bureaucrats is a bright light shining toward a healthy American future.
This Labor Day, we are in the midst of a great American rebound, and as we enjoy the day off with our friends and family (government health bureaucrats notwithstanding), please take a moment to raise a glass in praise of freedom and a resilient capitalist system which is leading the way to a return to the prosperity that was shattered just a few months ago.
America is the greatest country that has ever existed on the face of this earth and I, for one, will be celebrating that fact as America returns to work on Labor Day, 2020. A true return to normalcy.
Rick Manning is the President of Americans for Limited Government.
