bill: all that happening during a campaign event days before a national election. shocking a nation with some of the world s tightest gun regulations. violent crime in japan is rare. he was airlifted to a hospital with two gunshot wounds but they were fatal as doctors tried to revive him. the begunman was tackled at the scene. 41 years old. he is alive and an investigation underway how he got so close. alex hogan begins our coverage live in london with the late breaking details as we get more now. alex, hello. hi, bill. the former prime minister of japan has been assassinated. shinzo abe was at a campaign event when he was shot this taking place today in the western part of the country. minutes into his speech for a parliamentary election the 67-year-old conservative politician fell to the ground shot from behind. medics airlifted him to the hospital and doctors attempting to save him with blood transfusions before they officially declared him dead. the gunman is in c
rising slightly to 3.7%. those are the numbers, brand come over to you for some reaction. brian: thank you so much, garlic, appreciated, you set the table for us so you have jobless claims jobs attitude and 61,000, and employment up to 3.7% if we can, brian, let s start with you, right now the president keeps pointing to the fact that unemployment is relatively low saying we can t possibly be in a recession. the economy is struggling but not that much. microsoft laid off a thousand people, twitter is laying off half of their people so we will continue to see this. as people get laid off they will not be participating in the economy, i think we are already in a recession which will accelerate in the holiday se season. brian: 62% of the country is working, 62.3. that is up, 62.2 i should say before the pandemic it was 63.4. less people are working.
masks for next week. newark new jersey, jefferson county kentucky, clayton county georgia and philadelphia. they still have time to change their policy before tuesday. let s see what happens. they are actually requiring kids to wear masks as school starts. philadelphia says just for the first 10 days and then they will make it optional. but still. what is the first 10 days going to do? this is just a trial run? that all philadelphia factoid here, 62.2% of black parents and philadelphia have moved their kids to charter schools and they are trying to crush that in philadelphia. it s about controlling your kids because black parents are making the decision that my kids will do better or your kids will do better in schools where they have options and there not be masked up and shut down. anita: i think a lot of parents during the pandemic did move their kids from public to private schools.
are still there. to that point. i want to give you a couple of more statistics to tell you more about the inflationary story because it front and center for many americans. average hourly earnings on a year-over-year basis did rise by over 5%. 5.1%. not keeping pace with the inflation data but it does tell us the cost of goods and wages are going higher so that could have a real effect on things. and the stubbornness in labor force participation and where economists will say this is still weak. not as many americans are actually working or trying to work in the work force. joe and mika and willie, i will point out that the labor force participation rate was 62.2% so that is lower than it was last month and still kind of hovering below where we were pre-covid and the underemployment rate was 6.7%. again, lower than so i guess it is a mixed picture but generally markets are positive on this. economy is still going strong,
participation rate not moving. you would think that hire inflation, higher costs for everything as you said. inflation at a 40-year high would be pushing people back into the workforce and looking for a job. the participation rate is the same at 62.2% for several months now. that is a concern. mark just mentioned next week s report. that will be critical. we have the cpi and the ppi out on wednesday and thursday next week and year-over-year we re talking about the ppi being above 10 1/2%. expected at 10.6%. cpi expected above 8%. that will the market mover. the morning we talk about a report that is continuing to generate job growth. the jobs picture has not changed all that much, even in the face of 40-year high inflation and gas prices where they are. i do not believe that gasoline and inflation has peaked at this point. i really do not see evidence of