[clock ticking rapidly]
[music playing]
CARL AZUZ: Infrastructure and you.
Sounds like an old timey school informational video,
but that is the topic that leads off today's
objective coverage on CNN 10.
And we're happy to have you watching.
I'm Carl Azuz.
On Friday night, the US House of Representatives
passed a spending bill worth $1.2 trillion.
It's called the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
The bill had been passed by the Senate in August
so it's now headed to President Joe Biden's desk
for his signature into law.
Getting this plan through Congress
has been a major priority for the president
so its passage is considered a legislative victory for him.
But it took months and several setbacks
before the bill was passed, even though it had
bipartisan support in Congress.
The final House vote was 228 to 206.
A majority of Democrats and a minority of Republicans
voted for it, though a handful of Democrats
joined most Republicans in voting against it.
There is a lot in this bill.
Here is where some of the spending
is going, with the largest allocation of money
in this graphic intended for upgrades to roads and bridges.
But if you add up all the funding
for everything you see here, it amounts to $540 billion.
Less than half the total cost of the $1.2 trillion law.
So there are a lot of smaller spending categories
that factor in.
Some lawmakers were concerned this spending would add
to the federal deficit, the amount
the government spends that exceeds
the revenue it takes in.
President Biden and the bill's supporters
have said it wouldn't have a negative impact,
but the Congressional Budget Office,
which aims to give non-partisan estimates on government
spending and budgets, says the bill will add $256 billion
to the deficit over the next 10 years.
Concerns about spending are one reason why the infrastructure
bill got held up in Congress.
There's another, separate spending plan that the Biden
administration wants passed.
It's called the Build Back Better bill.
It's focused on social programs like government
funded preschool, lower cost child care, money for low cost
housing, and more than half a trillion
in spending on climate programs.
That bill's planned cost is currently $1.75 trillion.
But unlike the infrastructure bill,
the social spending plan has no bipartisan support.
All Republicans oppose it.
And even though Democrats control both chambers
of Congress, they've had a number of disagreements
over what should go into the social spending plan
and what it should cost.
Those disagreements held up passage of the infrastructure
bill until last Friday.
So what's next?
Well, Congress continues to debate the social plan
and wait for the Congressional Budget Office
to give estimates on what it would finally cost.
But the infrastructure bill is a done deal
and the president says he'll sign it this week.
Ten second trivia.
Which US President signed a law creating the Department
of Labor in 1913?
Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Woodrow Wilson,
or Warren G Harding?
[beeps]
In the closing hours of his presidency,
William Howard Taft signed the Department of Labor bill.
The Labor Department issues a monthly jobs
report looking at the state of employment in America.
And it has been on a roller coaster ride recently.
The initial jobs report for July, for instance,
indicated the US economy had added 943,000 jobs.
But in August, 235,000 jobs were added, when economists expected
hundreds of thousands more.
And September was worse, with initial estimates
at 194,000 additions.
But the latest report, with the numbers for October,
indicated an addition of 531,000 new jobs.
That exceeded economists' expectations.
Analysts say America's decreasing COVID
cases likely factored in here.
So might have holiday hiring.
And a government stimulus program
that gave financial aid to people who weren't working also
expired recently.
Critics of that program say that prompted
some people to go back to work.
More possible reasons for the rebound.
DUSTIN JONES: There's been a lot of different options.
BRIAN TODD: At a job fair in Charlotte this week,
Dustin Jones was looking for a position
requiring a commercial driver's license or in an office.
Jones said he wanted a job that could hold if there's
another shutdown due to COVID.
And he was optimistic.
DUSTIN JONES: This is the best time to go for job hunting.
People are very desperate to hire, so as far
as like, qualifying, there's a lot
of paid training on the job.
BRIAN TODD: The US Labor Department wholeheartedly
agrees with Dustin Jones.
It says the US economy added a whopping 531,000
new jobs last month.
About 80,000 more than economists had predicted.
- What this says to me is that the Delta variant is ebbing,
more people have been vaccinated.
And there is a lot of pent-up demand
in the system post-COVID.
People want to spend and people are getting back to work.
BRIAN TODD: 22 million jobs were lost when the pandemic
hit in March of last year.
But since then, 18 million have been gained,
a rebound of about 80%.
The leisure and hospitality sector of the US economy,
which was hit hardest during the pandemic recession,
is still about a million and a half jobs short
of its pre-pandemic level.
But analysts say the latest job numbers
indicate a healthy rebound for that sector.
- Leisure and hospitality-- that's where, obviously,
we saw some really big gains.
But you know, construction, manufacturing,
professional services, health care,
all added very significantly.
So all very encouraging.
Really, the only part of the economy that didn't add to jobs
was government.
BRIAN TODD: And, analysts say, certain demographics
of people who reentered the workforce recently
are fueling this surge.
- Women were hurt especially badly early
on in the pandemic, as you can imagine,
because of the childcare crunch.
And I think we're finally seeing women catch up.
BRIAN TODD: But overall, the American economy is not
free and clear of the pandemic.
- You have supply chain problems that are leading
to inflation and shortages.
You have consumers worried about the price of gas
or about the price of groceries.
BRIAN TODD: And at least one analyst
is warning of what he calls a potential hard landing
in the housing market.
Mark Zandi of Moody's analytics points out
there's a shortage of affordable houses in America.
House prices have skyrocketed in recent months.
If interest rates go up to combat inflation,
higher mortgage rates could really hurt demand for houses.
It may not derail the economy, Zandi says,
but homeowners could see some real declines
in their house prices.
Brian Todd, CNN Washington.
CARL AZUZ: It's that time of year when you hear a whole lot
about getting that extra hour of sleep as the US
falls back from Daylight Saving Time to Standard Time.
That happened on Sunday.
It means it'll be dark outside an hour earlier,
but it also means there will be more light outside when we
get up in the morning Calls to stop observing Daylight Saving
Time seem to be louder in the spring, when Americans have
to move their clocks forward one hour
and lose that hour of sleep.
But one thing that's kept us springing ahead and falling
back every year is the fact that there's
been no agreement yet which time to choose year round.
Standard Time or Daylight Saving Time?
How did all this start anyway?
JENNIFER GRAY: So why don't we change
the clocks ahead one hour in the spring
and back one hour in the fall?
Well, it's actually to reduce the electricity consumption by
extending the daylight hours.
In the US, we change our clocks at 2:00 AM on the second Sunday
in March.
That begins Daylight Saving Time.
That's when we spring head.
On the first Sunday in November, we change our clocks at 2:00 AM
again.
That's actually just going back to Standard Time.
Believe it or not, this started with an idea
from Benjamin Franklin.
Franklin did write an essay suggesting that people can use
less candles if they got up early
and made better use of daylight.
In 1918, the Standard Time act established
time zones and Daylight Saving Time, but not all states
participate.
To this day, most of Arizona and all of Hawaii
do not change their clocks.
Over 70 countries across the world
observe Daylight Saving Time, with notable exceptions
of China and Japan.
In 2007, we actually changed the date
of when we set our clocks back an hour to the first week
in November.
This helped protect trick-or-treaters by giving
them an extra hour of daylight.
One of the other lines of thinking
was that we would have a better voter
turnout on election years.
Experts say each time you change your clocks,
it's always a good idea to change those batteries
in your smoke detector.
And always look forward to fall when you
get that extra hour of sleep.
[music playing]
CARL AZUZ: For 10 out of 10, an art
exhibition that just wrapped up in Egypt
is really one of a kind.
It's unique because of its background.
I mean, you won't find this anywhere else.
The exhibition was called Forever Is Now,
and it featured large scale sculptures and installations
by 10 contemporary artists.
Some of their works appear to incorporate
their ancient background more than others.
The whole goal was to blend the past and the present.
Oh, some might not think it's worth the Monet to van Gogh
to a show like that.
They might not da "Vin-see" the purpose or Rivera the modern
methods if they believe in O'Keeffe-ing, or leaving
the pyramids [inaudible].
But for those who go "Chag-all" into thinking the past
and present "Rock-well" together, well,
they'll see that just like with the pyramids themselves,
there's a point.
Before we leave, we would like to point to our viewers
in Bucharest, the capital of Romania.
Shout-out to the students of Bucharest Christian Academy.
I'm Carl Azuz for CNN.
[music playing]