New Jobs Numbers, Same White House Message
The White House greeted Friday's news that the economy added jobs in February with a sunny statement, one that ought to inspire a creeping sense of déjà vu.
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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 White House greeted Friday's news that the economy added jobs in February with a sunny statement, one that ought to inspire a creeping sense of déjà vu.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the economy added 227,000 news jobs in February, while private sector payrolls increased by 233,000. Those strong numbers beat expectations analysts had predicted.
Anthony Garcia collected more than $30,000 in unemployment--not bad when you consider he was sitting in a Los Angeles jail serving a sentence for murder.
The image of a freelance writer seems so easy and glamorous: Write important articles on your laptop at coffeeshops by day, rub elbows with thought leaders at cocktail parties by night, all without ever punching a clock or having a boss like a square.
Cartoonist Tom Toles on the economy's not-so-fair weather fans.
House and Senate leaders could reach a deal tonight on extending the payroll tax cut, jobless benefits, and the Medicare reimbursement rate, The Hill's Bernie Becker reports.
Cartoonist Lisa Benson on the latest (and lowest) unemployment statistics.
Today's confirmation that the job market is tough (especially for young people), we learn Americans in their late 20s are moving back in with mom and dad at the very high rate of 34 percent.
After last week's tremendous jobs report, there's another bit of good bit of news from the Bureau of Labor Statistics today.
The unemployment rate posted another decline in January, dropping to 8.3 percent from 8.5 as the U.S. economy added 243,000 jobs.
The U.S. added 200,000 jobs in December, pushing the unemployment rate down to 8.5 percent from 8.6 percent.
The latest round of economic numbers shows 2011 ending with improving health, as jobless claims for the week went down 4,000 to 364,000 and the gross domestic product expanded by 1.8 percent, an increase over the second quarter's 1.3 percent gain
The number of people filing for unemployment continues to fall, and this week it hit a 3.5-year low as the fewest people since May 2008 applied for the benefit.
The Labor Department reported Thursday that initial jobless claims dropped to 381,000, which is the lowest reading since February.
The national unemployment rate dropped to its lowest level in two and a half years, falling 0.4 percent to a total of 8.6 percent of the population looking for work, according to Friday's report from the Labor Department.
Initial unemployment benefits claims have dropped again, this time to 388,000, down from last week's 393,000, according to the Department of Labor's numbers this morning.
Another ironic illustration of the recession's vicious cycle: due to poor economic conditions, college graduates who can't find jobs move back home with their parents, which, in turn, appears to hurt the economy more because new households aren't being created.
More than a quarter of U.S. homeowners owe more on their mortgages than their homes are worth.
A perfect storm of economic forces has caused the net worth of of people under 35 to fall by 68 percent between 1984 and 2009 according to the Pew Research Center.
Adding more fuel in the "Sucks to Be Us" or "Generation Jobless" vein, a new analysis of Census data from the Pew Research Center finds the wealth gap between older and younger adults gets even bigger, the Associated Press reported.
Good news! Today's jobs report shows we're not spiraling head-first into a double-dip recession. On the downside, the economy's not really growing much either.
Things aren't getting better yet: the number of Americans living far below the poverty line is only growing larger, and increasingly the hardest hit areas are becoming suburbs.
The federal government's IT department is supposed to be an apolitical, technocratic regime. But blunders on two federal websites are turning it into a political lighting rod for President Obama.
President Obama hasn't been able to put enough pressure on House Republicans to get them to pass his jobs bill -- or to pass pieces of his jobs bill -- so his next step in his anti-"do-nothing Congress" campaign is to use the executive order.
Here's something that might cheer up fatalistic liberals who think all the blame for inaction on jobs will fall on the president: conservatives fear Obama's tax-the-rich message is working.
The lucky Americans who have jobs are working more hours for less money, which is keeping American productivity up but worker morale low, and over the last few months we've gotten a clearer picture of what that means for workers.
The Labor Department figures say that initial claims still remain above 400,000
Obama is expected to endorse a 5.6% millionaire surtax
The White House has announced an 11 a.m. press conference today
Jobless claims fell to 391,000 and GDP growth revised up to 1.3% in the second quarter
Obama's plan for preventing employment bias fuels a debate
Law would forbid employers from passing over an applicant because he's out of a job
America's struggling youth are looking more and more like Japan's lost generation
Will buy longer-term Treasury securities and sell shorter ones to try to push down interest rates
On a critical campaign issue for him, the state performed worse than the national trend
Democrats appear to have the political upper hand, but they're still panicking
Gallup polling finds that unemployment is the top issue on everyone's mind
The right's response to record-high U.S. poverty rates
In 2010, there were 46.2 million impoverished Americans,
Read all 155 pages here
Cutting tax breaks beyond the plan's $447 billion price tag to make Obama look oh-so-reasonable
The president pitches his bill before submitting it to Congress
Obama will send his plan to Congress with a Rose Garden ceremony packed with veterans, cops, and firefighters
Republicans were more open to the proposals in his big speech than expected
After weeks of hype, the jobs speech is here
Obama will urge Congress to act quickly on proposals that will make him more popular
Other Republicans are going to stick it to the president by not showing up
Democratic sources tell CNN and CBS it will be a $400 billion package
The dreary consensus surrounding its projected impact on unemplyoment
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