If you listen to Trump and his Republican party, you would think the United States of America is worse than a third world country. Yes, there is always room for progress, but considering the most recent economic report, things are not as bad as they would have you believe.
Jobs added during the previous month were also revised up substantially by the Labor Department. It is the last look at the health of the economy for Americans voters before they cast their ballots next week.
Unemployment fell a tick to 4.9%. That’s down by half since 2009, when unemployment peaked at 10%.
October’s gains marked the 73rd consecutive month of job gains for the U.S. economy.
More non-farm jobs created in the month of December amounting to 292,000 jobs, according to a newly released report from The Bureau of Labor Statistics, and according to the report, the unemployment rate remains at 5%.
First-time filings for unemployment insurance fell by 34,000 to 262,000 in the week ended April 25, the lowest since April 15, 2000, a Labor Department report showed Thursday in Washington. The figure was smaller than the lowest projection in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
With job openings at a 14-year high and prospects for stronger growth after the first-quarter setback, companies are intent on maintaining headcounts. The level of firings is consistent the Federal Reserve’s view of sustained progress in the job market.
“Claims have been quite steady, remaining below this key level of 300,000,” Thomas Costerg, an economist at Standard Chartered Bank in New York, said before the report. “The U.S. labor market is in good shape and has been quite resilient.”
The median forecast of 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for 290,000, with estimates ranging from 275,000 to 300,000. Claims in the prior week were revised to 296,000 from an initially reported 295,000.
(AP) — U.S. employers added a whopping 321,000 jobs in November, the biggest burst of hiring in nearly three years and the latest sign that the United States is outperforming other economies throughout the developed world.
The Labor Department also said Friday that 44,000 more jobs were added in September and October combined than the government had previously estimated. Job gains have averaged 241,000 a month this year, putting 2014 on track to be the strongest year for hiring since 1999.
The unemployment rate remained at a six-year low of 5.8 percent last month.
The robust job gains come after the economy expanded from April through September at its fastest pace in 11 years. The additional jobs should support steady growth in coming months.
After two months of reporting weak job growth, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday that, seasonally adjusted, 162,000 new private jobs were created in February. Government at all levels hired 13,000. The official unemployment rate—which BLS calls U3 and calculates in a separate survey—rose to 6.7 percent.
The bureau revised its previously reported results for December from 75,000 to 84,000, and in January from 113,000 to 129,000. That brought the three-month average to 129,000. At that rate, it would take until September 2023 to return us to the pre-recession employment situation while absorbing the people who enter the labor force each month. At 175,000 a month, it would take until January 2020.
In the previous three years (2011-2013), seasonally adjusted job growth for the December-January period averaged a monthly 103,000, 261,000 and 230,000 respectively.
President Obama used his first weekly address of 2014 to urge Republicans to joint Democrats in doing what they should for the unemployed – extending unemployment insurance.
For decades, Republicans and Democrats put partisanship and ideology aside to offer some security for job-seekers, even when the unemployment rate was lower than it is today. Instead of punishing families who can least afford it, Republicans should make it their New Year’s resolution to do the right thing, and restore this vital economic security for their constituents right now.
After all, our focus as a country this year shouldn’t be shrinking our economy, but growing it; not narrowing opportunity, but expanding it; not fewer jobs, but doing everything we can to help our businesses create more of the good jobs that a growing middle class requires.
Thanks to a do nothing Congress, with blame placed squarely on the backs of the Republicans.
More than 1 million Americans are bracing for a harrowing, post-Christmas jolt as extended federal unemployment benefits come to a sudden halt this weekend, with potentially significant implications for the recovering U.S. economy. A tense political battle likely looms when Congress reconvenes in the new, midterm election year.
For families dependent on cash assistance, the end of the federal government’s “emergency unemployment compensation” will mean some difficult belt-tightening as enrollees lose their average monthly stipend of $1,166.
Jobless rates could drop, but analysts say the economy may suffer with less money for consumers to spend on everything from clothes to cars. Having let the “emergency” program expire as part of a budget deal, it’s unclear if Congress has the appetite to start it anew.
An estimated 1.3 million people will be cut off when the federally funded unemployment payments end Saturday.
Some 214,000 Californians will lose their payments, a figure expected to rise to more than a half-million by June, the Labor Department said. In the last 12 months, Californians received $4.5 billion in federal jobless benefits, much if plowed back into the local economy.
More than 127,000 New Yorkers also will be cut off this weekend. In New Jersey, 11th among states in population, 90,000 people will immediately lose out.
Now that it’s graduation season, the press can’t help but write articles like this one that discuss the terrible job market and how recent college graduates don’t feel prepared to enter the workforce.
To that I say, welcome to reality.
College is not job training; it’s academic training, and any university worth its books will operate on that premise. Graduates who think that they are now ready for the working world are living under a false assumption that’s been sold to the public for decades. High school guidance counselors, college consultants and many teachers peddle this connection as if it was always true and that the main reason one should go to college is simply to get a job. Institutions of higher education have bought into this line of illogic and are even going as far as to tailor their recruiting messages to highlight the terrific jobs their graduates have found.
What the colleges don’t tell you is whether those jobs are related to what you majored in. That is sometimes an inconvenient measure, akin to the one your high school used to keep property values in your town elevated. The school highlights the wonderful colleges its graduates attend, but does zero follow-up to see who’s staying in school, who’s graduating, and where they’re working. And all it costs is a zillion dollars, most of it in indebtedness that’s crushing the wannabe middle class.
So back to the question: Do you want job training? Find an apprenticeship or a school that focuses on technical skills. Don’t go to a pricey university and then complain that you don’t believe that you are ready for the working world.
A university degree confers upon you the affirmation that you’ve studied an academic discipline, thought about it, questioned its assumptions and come out the other side a more EDUCATED person. Along the way, perhaps you took that odd course that had nothing to do with your major or making money simply because it was interesting or the professor was exceptional or the guy/gal you liked was also signed up. A university is not a job factory, and people ignore that fact at their peril.
When I graduated in the early 80s, all full of myself for having gone to the premier Communications school in the country, I was asked the same question on every interview:
How fast can you type?
Mazel tov to all recent graduates. Your work education begins now.
A surprisingly strong jobs report for February sparked renewed faith in the economic recovery despite looming federal spending cuts and the recent increase in payroll taxes and gasoline prices.
Unemployment fell to 7.7 percent last month, from 7.9 percent in January.
It was the lowest rate of joblessness since December 2008, when the financial crisis and recession first pushed unemployment above 7 percent.
February produced 236,000 more jobs than were lost, the report said, higher than many optimistic forecasts had expected.
Much of the increase came in key areas such as construction work, which posted its best hiring in six years in part thanks to a recovery in housing activity.
Finding employment in this economy can be a daunting task. Many candidates have received numerous rejections for jobs they may very well be qualified for. So the question now is, what to do when you have received one rejection letter too many? You turn it into a job opportunity.
In the state of North Carolina, the voters chose to go in a different direction. For the past 20-years, a Democrat had been the sitting Governor of North Carolina, but all that changed on one election night in November, 2012. The new Governor, Pat McCrory, a former Mayor of Charlotte NC., was elected as the first Republican governor since Gov. Jim Martin who served from 1985 -1993.
Since Gov. McCrory’s inauguration in January this year and his State of the State Address this month, he has already made sweeping legislative moves and overturns that directly affect thousands of North Carolinians right where it hurts most – their finances. According to Gary Anderson of the Associated Press, McCrory signed the bill making these changes in his state’s Capitol building office. The media wasn’t invited to the signing, but several of the legislators (All Republicans) who quickly shepherded the bill through the General Assembly in the first two weeks of this year’s work session, were there. (Why so Secretive?)
The bill includes an unemployment plan that repays $2.5 billion owed the federal government for jobless benefits paid since the Great Recession, by cutting maximum weekly jobless payments from $535 to $350 on new claims beginning July 1. And the maximum number of weeks for state benefits goes from 26 weeks to 12 to 20 weeks, depending on the state unemployment rate. But what’s not mentioned is that Gov. McCrory gave a $13,000 raise to his Cabinet secretaries while making these cuts.
The bill also raises state unemployment taxes, partially through the elimination of a zero-percent rate that about 30,000 businesses have received. Federal taxes will continue to rise by $21 per employee per year until the debt is repaid and a 20-percent state surcharge will continue a little while longer.
“As one of the first laws under his tenure, these cruel cuts will forever mar any legacy that Gov. McCrory hopes to leave behind,” said MaryBe McMillan with the state AFL-CIO. “Only bullies kick people while they are down. Shame on our governor and our legislature for turning their backs on unemployed workers.”
Shameful indeed.
When President Obama even mentions a minimum wage increase or the super rich paying a little more in taxes or healthcare for every American, the Republicans cringe, squirm and call it bad economics. But a Republican Governor and Republican led House comes into power, kicks the little man while he’s down and this is considered Good Policy?
One leader, led by the North Carolina Chamber, who backed the overhaul – Chamber CEO Lew Ebert – acknowledged in an interview that it was “tough medicine” for both businesses and workers, but that it would insure the system wouldn’t be in such bad shape again. (Hey Ebert, what about those who aren’t working?)
“We’re sending a strong signal. We’re getting our house in order,” he said.
Riiiigghhtttt. By destroying the little man who’s struggling to make ends meet, keep a roof over his and his family’s head, put food on the table, pay for college tuitions, buy groceries, pay a mortgage, make a car payment, etc. All of this on $350 a week? Yep, that’s a Strong Signal alright. A signal signifying what Democrats have always thought about Republicans and was confirmed by the great Mitt Romney. Does 47% ring a bell?
Don’t look! This is something Republicans don’t want you to know. As far as they’re concerned, things are worse now under Obama than they were under Bush.
First-time claims for unemployment benefits plummeted by 37,000 in just one week, falling to 335,000 from 372,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said Thursday. That’s the lowest since January 2008.
The weekly number is much lower than economists had expected. Forecasts had predicted a total of 370,000 in the week ended Jan. 12, according to a consensus compiled by Briefing.com…
The weekly tally of jobless claims has improved dramatically over the last four years. Initial claims surged above 600,000 during the height of the recession, but by the end of 2011, had fallen below 400,000.
Last year, initial claims tended to stay in the range of 350,000 to 400,000, aside from a temporary bump due to Superstorm Sandy.
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