We’re suffering a period of remarkably low labor-force participation. The national unemployment rate was only 4.4 percent in August, but just 62.9 percent of the U.S. population is working or looking for work. Ten years ago, before the recession, the number was 65.8 percent. There are around 7…
We’re suffering a period of remarkably low labor-force participation. The national unemployment rate was only 4.4 percent in August, but just 62.9 percent of the U.S. population is working or looking for work. Ten years ago, before the recession, the number was 65.8 percent. There are around 7…
If you wonder what is supposed to happen when the demand for labor outruns the available supply, take a look at the picture below. It’s a Starbucks plea for baristas—the usually young people who make your latte, americano, or coconut milk mocha macchiato every morning. True, this particular branch…
The “Fight for $15” suffered a hit with the release of a study that hints at the negative effect that Seattle’s dramatic minimum wage increase has led to reduced wages for low-income workers.
The American economy has taken the shape of an iceberg. The visible part glistens in the reflected sunlight of Donald Trump. Beneath the surface lurks a structure that might not long be capable of supporting the glistening tip.
Parades, fireworks, patriotic songs, 150 million hot dogs consumed, 41 million car trips of more than 50 miles -- and heightened security in reaction to Islamist terrorist threats to disrupt our celebration with murder and mayhem as part of their celebration of their holy month of Ramadan. That’s…
The latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the unemployment rate ticking up to 5.5 percent and that the economy added 280,000 jobs:
Prices matter. They are the economists’ canary in the coal mine, an indicator of what is to come. Not necessarily as grim an indicator as when we have here a dead canary, but a pointer that cannot be ignored. When oil prices plummeted, analysts paid attention, hunting for causes and effects. Wages…
Sometimes -- not often, but sometimes -- anecdote is more revealing than data. Especially when the data are subject to major revisions, which is the case with most monthly economic data. This is one of those times. Last week’s jobs report -- 295,00 new nonfarm jobs in February -- was a bit more…
The monthly BLS report on unemployment comes in under expectations which were for some 235,000 news jobs. So the 214,000 is a downside miss. However, the new benchmark for “good, not great” seems to be a monthly increase in of 200,000. And the economy has hit that number for nine consecutive…
Coming in ahead of the unemployment figure for September, which will be released on Friday, and tomorrow’s weekly first-time-claims number, the ADP jobs report might be some sort of harbinger. In the case of today’s number, a happy one, as Paul Davidson of USA Today reports:
This is the conclusion, as Pedro Nicolaci Da Costa of the Wall Street Journal reports, reached by:
A new poll suggests that finding employment, particularly for the long-term unemployed, continues to be a struggle for Americans. The poll, conducted by Harris Poll on behalf of Express Employment Professionals, asked questions of 1,500 unemployed adult Americans last month.
Non-farm payrolls beat expectations. Quite handsomely. As Michelle Jamrisko of Bloomberg reports:
Ben Casselman at 538, on unemployment and underemployment, starting from this point.
Long-term unemployment, in some cases, does not even show up in the jobless figures released monthly by the Labor Department and eagerly anticipated by the political spinners standing by to mold them into partisan shape. Many of those whose unemployment has been prolonged simply give up; something…
Millions of Americans, glutted with benefits that until now have seemed likely to be renewed and renewed again, have suddenly become devoid of ambition, shed the work ethic, and taken to the couch and the TV remote. Or found a back pain or emotional problem that entitles them to the even higher…
A recently released Department of Agriculture (USDA) report on the "Food Assistance Landscape" for the fiscal year 2013 shows that for the second year in a row, participation in the federal government's SNAP (food stamps) program has increased despite a corresponding drop in the unemployment rate,…
Alabama senator Jeff Sessions responds to the latest jobs report:
The latest jobs numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:
House speaker John Boehner released a statement Tuesday concerning "'emergency' unemployment insurance" (Boehner's quotation marks) and criticizing President Obama for not offering a plan to extend unemployment insurance that would include provisions to "put people back to work." Here's the…
“Everything’s coming up roses,” a mother reassures her daughter in Gypsy, the 1959 musical chronicling the rise of burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee. Were lyricist Stephen Sondheim surveying the American economy, he might want to extend the reassurance to the rest of us. For it does seem as if, at…
A Census Bureau report released on Tuesday says that the number of households with children under 18 with at least one unemployed parent increased by 33 percent between 2005 and 2011 from 2.4 million to 3.2 million. In addition, home ownership among households with children under 18 declined by 15…
The great recession may be behind us, but the damage has not been repaired. As Michael A. Fletcher reports in the Washington Post:
The Labor Department announced Monday the awarding of $64 million in grants to help unemployment insurance recipients find work more quickly. The funds will be divided up between thirty-eight states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the District of Columbia. Acting Labor Secretary Seth Harris…
The first of this week's three big employment numbers was released this morning. Tomorrow, we will learn the first-time claims number. Friday, the unemployment number and rate for the previous month. As this item from Reuters indicates, the signs are not good:
Jim Cramer said this morning on CNBC that the new jobs report could signal a "permanent unemployed level":
According to Bloomberg:
With the latest jobs report, it is now the case that "Under Obama, Food Stamp Growth [Is] 75 Times Greater Than Job Creation," according to statistics compiled by the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee. "For Every Person Added to Jobs Rolls Since January 2009, 75 People Added To Food…
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the biggest change in employment over the last month affected black workers. In September, the unemployment rate for blacks was 13.4 percent. In October, that number jumped to 14.3 percent, an almost a full percentage point change, according to the…
The unemployment rate, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, is now 7.9 percent:
Until now, most forecasters have been framing the assumptions underlying their projections on what they assume a reelected Barack Obama would do about taxes, appointments to the Federal Reserve Board, spending, the deficit and a host of other policies. Suddenly, they are back to the drawing board.…
“Well, we’ve gone through a tough four years.” That line from Tuesday night’s presidential debate wasn’t particularly surprising. It was, after all, exactly what one would expect Mitt Romney to say about President Obama’s tenure in office. What was surprising was that it wasn’t Romney who…
A new chart from the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee details the fact that, since January 2009, for every person added to the labor force, 10 have been added to those not in the labor force. Here's a chart showing the dwindling labor force:
This morning's jobs report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics is being met with skepticism. The report found that, from August to September, the unemployment rate dropped from just above 8 percent to 7.8 percent.
Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney released the following statement in response the latest jobs report, which reported that unemployment had dropped slightly to 7.8 percent:
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the unemployment rate has decreased to 7.8 percent. The biggest drops in unemployment, from the report on August to the report just released on September, is among teenagers, blacks, and Asians.
The unemployment rate is now 7.8 percent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports:
Fairfax, Va.
In one of President Obama's TV ads, Bill Clinton says that the key question in this election is which candidate can figure out how "to return us to full employment." But as the federal government's own figures show, Obama might want to start by first figuring out how to get us back to the level of…
On Wednesday night, former president Bill Clinton assured us that nobody could have managed the Great Recession better than Barack Obama. He compared Obama’s tenure to the period between 1993 and 1996, when the economy was recovering but people were not yet feeling it. He assured us that, soon…
As the jobs numbers were read on air this morning on MSNBC, host Joe Scarborough immediately proclaimed, "This is good news for the president."
Among the more trenchant lines from Paul Ryan's speech was this:
In response to a statement about the high unemployment rate for those with college degrees, Robert Gibbs, a surrogate for President Obama's reelection campaign, admitted that things are particularly bad for those without college degrees:
It was reported this morning that weekly jobless claims are up for the second straight week, and this week's unexpected increase exceeded analysts' expectations. The numbers (372,000 jobless claims last week) don't suggest that the next unemployment report will be awful, but it's a safe bet that…
Jobless claims rose by 4,000 for a second week to reach 372,000 in the period ended Aug. 18, Labor Department figures showed today ... The median forecast of 41 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for 365,000. The four-week moving average, a less volatile measure, increased to 368,000. This…
The people who didn't build their small businesses seem to think so. The Wall Street Journal reports:
In an interview with Black Enterprise magazine, President Barack Obama blames state and local governments, as well as Congress, for over 14 percent black unemployment.
If the Federal Reserve Board’s monetary policy gurus hoped that Friday’s jobs report would give them solid guidance as to how to set future monetary policy they were sorely disappointed. The jobs situation neither deteriorated sufficiently to justify another round of easing, nor improved…
President Obama likes to say that he inherited a terrible economy but has gotten it headed in the right direction. But the employment figures released today by the federal government’s own Bureau of Labor Statistics tell a decidedly different story. During the final month of the 2008-09 recession,…
The unemployment rate increased to 8.3 percent, according the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Of the ten swing states, unemployment dropped in only one--Ohio--in the month of June. And things got worse in 6 of the ten swing states, according to the Wall Street Journal.
On C-SPAN's Washington Journal recently, a Democratic member of Congress, Rosa DeLauro, said that the increase of food stamps usage has to do with the "rough economy" and the fact that real unemployment is higher than 8.2 percent. The 8.2 percent number is the one offered by the federal Bureau of…
Fed chairman Ben Bernanke told a congressional committee today that "the reduction in the unemployment rate seems likely to be frustratingly slow":
A new chart set to be released by the Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee details an alarming fact: In the last three months, more Americans have joined disability than have found a job:
For 280 consecutive months before President Obama took office — a span of more than 23 years — the portion of Americans who were employed always exceeded 60.0 percent (according to official tallies from the Bureau of Labor Statistics). In marked contrast, last Friday’s jobs numbers show that, under…
President Obama spent the first few minutes of his remarks today in Poland, Ohio cracking jokes with the crowd, and avoiding having to address today's disappointing jobs report:
White House chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Alan Krueger issued this statement on today's jobs numbers:
CNBC reports:
Remember Michael Dukakis (1988) and John Kerry (2004)? It's possible to lose a winnable presidential election to a vulnerable incumbent in the White House (or in the case of 1988, a sitting vice president). So, speaking of losing candidates from Massachusetts: Is it too much to ask Mitt Romney to…
The Economic Times reports:
The Republican National Committee has released this web ad, which hits President Obama--because, under his leadership, "Hispanics are left suffering disproportionately under his economic policies," according to an RNC press release.
Today, President Obama said, “It has typically taken countries up to ten years to recover from financial crises of this magnitude.” In truth, however, the historical norm has been as follows: the deeper the recession, the stronger the recovery.
Just as America proved to be such a safe haven for immigrants in the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, it is now seen as a safe haven for wealth attempting to escape Europe’s tax collectors and financial chaos and recession in Europe, and for foreign central banks newly enamored of the dollar.
Last year, the mega-law firm Dewey & LeBouef generated revenue totaling $782 million. It was the 20th largest firm according to the National Law Journal. Its clients included the Los Angeles Dodgers, the NFL Players Association, and eBay. But over the last five months, 206 of its partners defected.…
CNBC reports:
On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics will release its first estimate of jobs created during the month of May. The consensus estimate is for about 150,000 total jobs to have been added to the economy, barely enough to keep up with population growth and certainly insufficient to reduce the…
Everybody is worried about the nation’s dismal employment situation, and that worry has prompted news organizations, pundits, market watchers, and others to focus intently upon any and all economic metrics that gauge the problem. On the first Friday of every month, the non-farm payroll report from…
The federal government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes monthly tallies for the employment-population ratio. That stat shows something rather straightforward: Among those who are living in America and are free to pursue employment, what percentage are employed? (The bureau excludes those…
President Obama's deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, admitted at a Harvard Kennedy School of Government event in Massachusetts that "The economy, you know, will continue to be a challenge."
That’s what Clive Crook thinks, anyway. In a measured appraisal of the election, he writes:
The latest Mitt Romney web ad looks at "a few of the 23 million Americans ... [who] are out of work, underemployed, or have stopped looking for work. These are the stories behind the statistics. These are a few of the twenty-three million."
President Obama, speaking earlier today at a campaign event in Seattle, Washington:
We are the ones ... who are waiting tables and living in our parents' basements. According to Gallup:
James Pethokoukis asks, "what is the true state of the labor market?" He offers, "If the size of the U.S. labor force as a share of the total population was the same as it was when Barack Obama took office—65.7% then vs. 63.6% today—the U-3 unemployment rate would be 11.1%."
The New York Times reports on the latest jobs report, just released this mroning:
It looked so easy when the bipartisan JOBS Act cleared the Senate (73-26) and the House (380-41) and was signed into law by President Obama last week. But passage of a strong bill wasn’t a snap. Only the maneuvering of Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell kept the measure from being delayed,…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD has a full-time position available for an editorial assistant. Duties will include fact-checking, updating our website, research, and proofreading. Candidates should address a cover letter and résumé to hr@weeklystandard.com.
Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports an unemployment rate of 8.3 percent for February, which is equal to the rate in January and lower than the rate throughout 2011. Jim Pethokoukis reacts by posting this updated graph that compares the unemployment reality to the promises the Obama…
Politico: "Worry over Mitt Romney sparks talk of Tampa"
DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz said this morning on Fox News that unemployment has not been increasing under President Obama:
The GOP members of the Joint Economic Committee respond to today's unemployment numbers:
WEEKLY STANDARD contributing editor Charles Krauthammer seeks a research assistant for a one- or two-year term. Send résumé to job@charleskrauthammer.com.
ABC News reports that during an interview with David Muir yesterday concerning President Obama’s $447 billion jobs bill, “Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner didn’t dispute a Harvard economist’s estimate that each job in the White House’s jobs plan would cost $200,000, but said” — mysteriously…
President Barack Obama will be in Colorado, a state he won in 2008, to pitch his American Jobs Act to a crowd at a Denver high school. The Denver Post, meanwhile, will be greeting Obama with a front-page story on Colorado's unemployed:
Just this morning, White House adviser David Axelrod went on network television and laid down an ultimatum about the president's jobs bill:
'The simplest question,” Dick Cheney writes in his memoir In My Time, “is the most important one.” He mentions this in the context of asking how many American nukes were aimed at Kiev during the Cold War. For President Obama, with job growth stuck near zero, the simplest question is a domestic one.…
CNBC reports:
Time's Michael Scherer reports that, in June, "White House chief of staff Bill Daley arranged a secret retreat for his senior team at Fort McNair ... Historian Michael Beschloss went along as a guest speaker to help answer the one question on everyone’s mind: How does a U.S. President win…
According to the Commerce Department numbers released Friday, the U.S. economy is growing at just 1.3 percent. Maybe. First quarter growth, initially reported as a disappointing 1.9 percent, was revised drastically down to just 0.4 percent. Those numbers are depressing enough. The downward revision…
The AP reports:
The disappointing employment report made public on July 8 provided fresh evidence that economic growth is slowing and the state of the economy will be the central issue in next year’s presidential election. As if in anticipation of the jobs report, David Plouffe, senior political adviser to…
Streamlining our patent process? Yes, that was one of the remedies President Obama offered Friday in response to news the unemployment reached 9.2 percent in June and job growth was pitiful.
This is a tale of two cities. Well, two streets, Wall Street and Main Street, with a stop on Pennsylvania Avenue along the way. On Wall Street all is cheery, if you don’t count the investment banks that are faced with rising costs, lower incomes, and the need to pare staffs. Investors have watched…
James Pethokoukis: The jobs report from hell.
White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee on Friday cautioned against overreading a dismal June unemployment report showing just 18,000 jobs added. Don’t “read too much into any one monthly jobs report,” he said.
The latest jobs numbers arrived this morning and are especially devastating -- the number of jobs added was the lowest in nine months:
When the Obama administration releases a report on the Friday before a long weekend, it’s clearly not trying to draw attention to the report’s contents. Sure enough, the “Seventh Quarterly Report” on the economic impact of the “stimulus,” released on Friday, July 1, provides further evidence that…
A new CNN poll shows which issues Americans say will most influence their votes in next year’s presidential election. The issues that respondents most often listed as being “extremely important” were the economy (51 percent), health care (45 percent), unemployment (45 percent), and federal deficits…
The Obama administration is 0-for-3 in meeting economic expectations. In 2009, President Obama and his advisers believed the bountiful stimulus package would give the economy a strong jolt. It didn’t, and still hasn’t. In 2010, Obama declared Recovery Summer and predicted a surge in employment. The…
The only question now is whether the slowdown in the economy is what economists at the HSBC bank call “a speed bump” on the road to continued recovery, or the first step down the road to a double-dip recession. No less an expert than former Federal Reserve Board chairman Alan Greenspan answers, “I…
According to the unemployment data released this morning, the economy added only 54,000 jobs, pushing the unemployment rate up to 9.1 percent. However, this report from MarketWatch suggests the data is much worse than that:
The New York Times writes,
This doesn't sound good: "Shadow Stat Misery Index Highest on Record"
"Why Don't We Hear About Soros' Ties to Over 30 Major News Organizations?"
A media meme has developed about the economy and the 2012 election: if Barack Obama gets the unemployment rate at or below 8 percent, he will be well positioned to win reelection. To that end, the press greeted last Friday’s jobs report (the addition of 216,000 jobs, and unemployment falling to 8.8…
Let me bore you with some numbers. Employment dipped to 137,960,000 in December 2009. That may seem like a lot of Americans with jobs, but it happened to be the low point in the recession that began before President Obama took office the prior January.
Because it worked so well last time around:
Pity the poor economist trying to create a coherent picture of the U.S. economy from the bits and pieces of the data jigsaw puzzle, the most recent piece of which was Friday’s jobs report. Non-farm payrolls were up 192,000 in February, and the estimates of the previous two months’ jobs growth were…
Gallup has found that unemployment ticked slightly up by the end of January, going up to 9.8 percent (up from 9.6 percent at the end of December 2010). That's the highest Gallup has measured unemployment since the average last October was at 10 percent even.
The tragic shooting by a deranged man in Tucson absorbed the president’s time and attention last week, and culminated in a masterful speech in which he refused to blame the tragedy on heated political discourse, but nevertheless called for a more civil discourse to help the nation face up to its…
Good news for the president. After nearly two years of sliding downward, his job approval numbers have ticked up a little bit. The average of major media polls in December had him clocking in with a job approval of about 45 percent. As of early January, his numbers are up to about 49 percent. The…
Rich Lowry:
The New York Times reports on the apparent deal in the works between congressional Democrats and Republicans:
Last week’s anemic jobs report came as a sobering reminder that America’s economic malaise shows little sign of slowing. Overall non-farm payrolls shrunk by 95,000 in September, while private sector hiring decelerated for the third consecutive month. High unemployment is now an acute national…