LARRY KUDLOW: The underlying strength of the economy is up for debate

Whatever your interpretation of the March jobs report, the fact is, the Federal Reserve is not going to cut its interest rate target this year. Not going to do it. Inflation is inching up, not down.

MARCH JOBS REPORT: HEALTH CARE AND GOVERNMENT SECTORS ADDED THE MOST WORKERS

Commodity prices are booming, including world oil prices. Gold has exploded higher. The official price indexes themselves have been moving north, not south, nor is the Fed going to move its 2% inflation target. Grocery prices have increased more than 50% since 2019, according to the Wall Street Journal.

A typical basket of groceries worth $100 about five years ago would require about $140 today.

And while the underlying strength of the economy is up for debate, it has not fallen into recession. Whatever you think of the validity of the jobs numbers, the fact remains the unemployment rate is 3.8%. That’s not a recessionary indicator. If the Fed were dumb enough to ignore the actual data and went ahead and started cutting rates, it would be viewed as a political attempt to juice the economy in order to re-elect Joe Biden.

Biden has already told the Fed to cut rates, as have the usual far-left senators like Sherrod Brown, Liz Warren and Bernie Sanders. In other words, round up the usual suspects. Donald Trump and every Republican official would just pound the Fed if they tried to pull a foolhardy stunt like an election-year easing, while inflation continues hot and the economy remains resilient.

And the GOP would be correct to pound Jay Powell and the Fed for that kind of election-year shenanigan.

US ECONOMY ADDS 303K JOBS IN MARCH, MUCH STRONGER THAN EXPECTED

Meanwhile, Joe Biden has an inflationary budget with massive spending, record deficits, and Treasury market overload borrowing. So, on the one hand, the Bidens are trying to inflate the economy, but on the other hand, the Fed’s trying to restrain it.

Doesn’t make a bit of sense. Meanwhile, Mr. Biden wants tax hikes in virtually every nook and cranny of the economy. Companies, individuals, investors, a 50% capital gains tax, foreign income from U.S. multinationals, and also letting foreign governments decide tax burdens on American companies abroad. Pure insanity — $3 or $4 trillion in higher taxes that would smash enterprise and blunt any hope of long-term economic growth.

AMERICANS IN THESE STATES ARE GETTING A PAY RAISE THIS YEAR

Biden’s huge spending and taxing policies, along with his manic government regulation of energy, and his attempts to force-feed electric vehicles that nobody wants — thereby ending gas vehicles that most folks love — has caused a rebellion around the country.

People don’t want government bureaucrats to tell them how to live or what they can or cannot buy. This country loves freedom, not big-government statism. The country loves consumer choice as a big part of their freedom. As for the March jobs numbers, the topline print says 303,000.

But if you look under the hood, there’s 26.8 million part-time workers, including a 691,000 jump of part-timers in March. Full-timers fell 6,000. Folks with multiple jobs to make ends meet increased by 217,000.

Meanwhile, in the private sector, industrial workers fell 164,000 after dropping 151,000 in February. Hat-tip to former White House economist Joe Lavorgna on that one. Additionally, over the past year, foreign-born jobs exceeded native-born by 1.3 million.

Now, the Bureau of Labor Statistics labels this “legally employed foreign-born.” So it does not appear that this comes out of Biden’s catastrophic open-border policy that has generated roughly 10 million illegals with a massive crime wave to go along with it.

We’ll revisit these foreign-born job numbers as time goes on and more data is available. But really, the major reason for Joe Biden’s sub-basement economic polls is that the country has no confidence in him or his ability to generate future opportunities and prosperity.

Real wages have fallen badly during his term. Middle-class working folks don’t believe he would fix that if given a second try, and I think that’s the real story.