After having expectations significantly lowered by a week of depressing numbers, the monthly jobs report came in on Friday as a pleasant surprise. Here's all the good news, and why the sequester hasn't brought the economy to a stop. Indeed, the markets are loving this news.
The good news is that unemployment rate actually went down to 7.6 percent, lower than it's been at any point since Obama took office. Based on what we're seeing from economics watchers across the spectrum, here are the big reactions — simplified.
The unemployment rate dropped from 7.9 to 7.7 percent as the country added 236,000 jobs in February, according to data released this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And here are some charts that show why that's such great news.
Welcome to Sequester Day! How will you celebrate and/or mourn? And what is your government doing to put a stop to it?
Both Republicans and Democrats cast themselves as deficit cutters during the presidential election, but the new reality from the anual CO report is further evidence that no one in Washington — not Obama or Boehner — will take credit for the sequester anymore.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced this morning that the unemployment rate for January rose slightly, but revisions to previous months showed a huge surge in hiring.
The artist's document of the 1980s recession is expected to go for as much as $30,000 at Christie's auction house.
In the first jobs report of 2013, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 7.8 percent while the U.S. economy added 155,000 new jobs — and that's good news.
Nearly a month ago, Sandy slammed onshore and ruined things for a lot of people on the East Coast. The job market has now officially fallen victim as well, with unemployment claims hitting 410,000 today.
A new Gallup Poll says Americans are finally feeling better about their financials and that comes on the heels of a USA Today survey which found that economists are saying that our worst economic days may be behind us.
The weekly initial claims report came in exactly where economists predicted, which tells us ... not a whole lot about which way the economy is going.
Weekly unemployment claims rose to 388,000 last week, but everyone is still so confused about last week's report, that no one really knows what to believe.
The U.S. Consumer sentiment is at a level we haven't seen since before the recession. What that means, in the simplest terms, is that you feel pretty awesome about buying things right now.
The science of unemployment claims has never been more heated. The reaction to this week's report has morphed from confusion to disbelief into an email war between the State of California and Henry Blodget.
In the economics world, Thursdays means initial jobless claims, and that means yet another favorable statistic that has naturally suspicious people scratching their heads.
Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch has quit his punditry gigs -- except for Twitter, of course, which is the one that got him into trouble in the first place.
Jack Welch is still pretty sure yesterday's job numbers were fudged, but he doesn't have any proof and he can't defend himself otherwise.
Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch says he stands by his tweet alleging the Bureau of Labor Statistics faked its numbers to lower the unemployment rate to 7.8 percent.
The buzziest part of the economy — the social media startups centered in Silicon Valley — were once heralded as a way to kickstart the economy. Now that there's some good news on the job front — unemployment lower than it's been since January 2009 and 114,000 new jobs last month — it's clear that's not where job growth is coming from.
Mitt Romney crushed President Obama in the first presidential debate Wednesday night, which changed everything, until a good jobs report changed everything again Friday morning.
The unemployment rate plunged to 7.8 percent in September, its lowest level since Barack Obama took office in 2009.
While adult children moving in with their parents used to be quirky enough to serve as a movie premise (like in Jeff, Who Lives at Home or that one starring Matthew McConaughey), it's pretty common these days: about 25 percent of Americans between 18 and 30 are living with parents.
Today in Ad Watch: In a very special edition, we present Mitt Romney's 15 ads shock-and-awe-ing eight states Friday.
There's speculation that the tone, if not the content, of President Obama's speech was affected by knowing a weak jobs report was coming this morning, and he left some things out.
The monthly jobs report fell far short of expectations, but President Obama gets some sliver of good news as the unemployment rate falls to the lowest number of his administration.
The pair of economic reports that precede Friday's national unemployment figures sound pretty hopeful on the whole, but each one has a caveat.
The United States added 163,000 nonfarm jobs in July, more than twice the amount it added in June, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday, but the overall unemployment rate didn't change much, coming in at 8.3 percent, up from June's 8.2 percent.
It's tempting to be optimistic about Wednesday's report by the payroll firm ADP, that showed the private sector added 163,000 jobs in July and beat analysts' expectations of 120,000, but that report has been pretty far from the official figures of late.
Our neighbors to the north have reason to gloat: Canadians are on average wealthier than Americans.
Presidential campaigns are like Mortal Kombat, where the press sets up an artificial battle between the candidates over the news item of the day, and the candidate who wins is the one with the very best official response.
The United States added just 80,000 jobs last month, keeping the unemployment rate at an annoyingly high 8.2 percent, despite Thursday's hopeful figures on jobless benefit claims and ADP's private employment estimate.
Thursday saw some unexpectedly hopeful employment data from both the U.S. government and private analysts, as the number of initial employment claims fell 14,000 for the week while payroll firm ADP reported the country added 176,000 jobs in June.
Americans think neither President Obama nor Mitt Romney can do much about the economy. Plus, Latinos lean heavily toward Obama, but not because of immigration, and voters think the president abused his executive powers on Fast and Furious.
"President Obama spoke for 54 minutes and there was not one new idea about how to fix the economy," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor tweeted in response to President Obama's big campaign speech in Ohio Thursday, and he was right!
Today in Ad Watch: Mitt Romney makes his first negative TV ad about Obama's "doing fine" comment, Obama says Romney grew the debt in Massachusetts, and a Republican group urges action on Iran.
Today in Ad Watch: Mitt Romney responds to President Obama's attacks on his jobs record, while the Republican National Committee makes Obama look like a whiner.
It is very clear how last week's bad jobs report will affect the presidential race. It is less clear how it will affect policy that could create jobs.
This has not been a great week for the U.S. job market as the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported the nation added just 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year, pushing the national unemployment rate up to 8.2 percent from last month's 8.1 percent.
Today in Ad Watch: President Obama's campaign says Mitt Romney's embrace of Donald Trump says something about his character, while Karl Rove's Super PAC says that while Bain Capital might be bad, Obama's "Wall Street games" are worse.
Hewlett-Packard announced Wednesday that they will cut about 27,000 jobs by the end of 2014 in order to save up to $3.5 billion, so that's obviously not great news for the economy.
Here's a little lesson on austerity measures. The unemployment rate -- the economic indicator President Obama's most maligned for -- might be a lot lower had the president been allowed to keep government payrolls up like he wanted to.
Now that the Republican primary is over, the race between Mitt Romney and President Obama is getting closer. Romney has the edge nationally, but Obama has the edge in the states that matter. Here's our guide to today's polls and why they matter.
You can make any point at all with math. Here's our guide to doing that with Friday's jobs report.
When unemployment drops by only .1 and the number of new jobs misses the mark by 45,000, "disappointment" is one of the gentler terms you could use in describing April's sad jobs report.
The payroll firm Automatic Data Processing likes to scoop the federal government by releasing its own set of employment data early, and this month we hope they're quite wrong, as they've predicted the smallest rise in private-sector job growth since last September.
Almost one-quarter of all Spanish workers are unemployed right now, with no sign that nation's economy will get better any time soon.
Just how bad is it out there for young college graduates? Bad. Really bad.
In some of the big swing states that helped Mitt Romney beat his opponents -- Florida, Ohio -- he's going to have a harder time fighting President Obama, due in part to a better economy. Here's our guide to today's polls and why they matter.
The Unemployment fell ever so slightly to 8.2 percent for March, but the economy added a disappointing 120,000 jobs, far fewer than the 209,000 estimated by ADP and the 200,000 or more economists had been predicting.
Ahead of Friday's official unemployment figure, the firm Automatic Data Processing released its own monthly report showing private companies in the United States put on 209,000 jobs in March, down from 230,000 added in February but still a strong gain.
The U.S. Labor Department reported Thursday that the number of people seeking initial unemployment claims fell 5,000 last week to 359,000--the lowest since April 2008--a strong indicator that the U.S.'s labor market is improving.
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