[HOT AIR] In case you hadn’t noticed, President Joe Biden has been making a number of appearances lately at manufacturing plants. These trips included a microchip plant in North Carolina and a "green energy" plant in Minnesota. He’s been attempting to show voters how his policies are driving an economic comeback in the manufacturing sector, particularly for projects to save the climate or whatever. But as usual, the real story of American manufacturing is quite different than the one that the White House is trying to sell. As was reported in the Free Beacon on Monday, analysts are keeping a close eye on the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index, known as PMI. It’s a key indicator of how strong manufacturing actually is in the United States. And this week, the index fell to the lowest level seen since the pandemic began.U.S. manufacturing reached its lowest point since the start of the pandemic, according to a report released just as President Joe Biden embarked on a tour of U.S. factories to tout his promise to boost the industry.As noted, the PMI is a fairly straightforward measure of manufacturing health in the country. It’s set up on a scale of 1 to 100. A PMI higher than 50 indicates growth, while a measurement below 50 signals decline. This week the PMI hit 46.3. If you factor out the aberration of the government shutdowns in 2020, this is the lowest the PMI has been since 2009 at the tail end of the Great Recession.
On Monday, the Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index reached its lowest point, 46.3, since May 2020, Reuters reported. Excluding the pandemic recession, the index, known as PMI, was at its lowest point since 2009.
PMI is a tool for identifying economic trends in the manufacturing and service sectors based on business conditions at hundreds of major companies. A PMI below 50 indicates decline.