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Economic growth Politics

US Economic Growth Accelerates – 2.9% Growth in Third Quarter

The World Street Journal reports that U.S. economic growth accelerated last quarter, easing fears of a near-term slowdown but doing little to change the trajectory of a long but weak expansion.

Gross domestic product, a broad measure of goods and services produced across the economy, expanded at an inflation- and seasonally adjusted 2.9% annual rate in the third quarter, the Commerce Department said Friday. That was stronger growth than the second quarter’s pace of 1.4%. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expected growth at a 2.5% pace for the July-to-September period.

Last quarter’s growth rate was the fastest recorded in two years.

The third-quarter acceleration largely reflected increased exports and a buildup of inventories, while consumer spending increased at a slower rate.

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Politics

Report – Millions of Americans Climb Out of Poverty 

According to census data released this month, 3.5 million Americans were able to raise their chins above the poverty line last year.
More than seven years after the recession ended, employers are finally being compelled to reach deeper into the pools of untapped labor, creating more jobs, especially among retailers, restaurants and hotels, and paying higher wages to attract workers and meet newminimum wage requirements.

“It all came together at the same time,” said Diane Swonk, an independent business economist in Chicago. “Lots of employment and wages gains, particularly in the lowest-paying end of the jobs spectrum, combined with minimum-wage increases that started to hit some very large population areas.”

Poverty declined among every group. But African-Americans and Hispanics — who account for more than 45 percent of those below the poverty line of $24,300 for a family of four in most states — experienced the largest improvement.

Government programs — like Social Security, the earned-income tax credit and food stamps — have kept tens of millions from sinking into poverty year after year. But a main driver behind the impressive 1.2 percentage point decline in the poverty rate, the largest annual drop since 1999, was that the economy finally hit a tipping point after years of steady, if lukewarm, improvement.

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Featured Mitch McConnell Politics

Mitch McConnell Takes Credit for Democrats’ Economic Growth

After being a leader of The Party of NO, going against every economic policy implemented by the president and Democrats and being a member of the party that shut down the government, Mitch McConnell is now doing his best trying to take credit for economic prosperity we are now facing in this country.

McConnell actually had the nerves to say this;

“After so many years of sluggish growth, we’re finally starting to see some economic data that can provide a glimmer of hope; the uptick appears to coincide with the biggest political change of the Obama administration’s long tenure in Washington: the expectation of a new Republican Congress,” McConnell said on Wednesday.

“So this is precisely the right time to advance a positive, pro-growth agenda.”

The comment provoked snide chuckles from Democrats. The Democratic National Committee emailed out a statement with the subject line “DNC to McConnell: Hahahahahahahahahahaha.”

Here’s the statement from DNC Communications Director Mo Elleithee:
Hahahahahahahahahahaha. That Mitch McConnell is one funny guy. He likes to remind people all the time that he’s not a scientist. Now we know he’s not a mathematician or an economist either. The fact is, under President Obama we’ve had 57 straight months of private sector job growth leading to nearly 11 million jobs added. All Republicans have given us is a government shutdown that cost the economy $24 billion. I get why he wants to take credit for the economic recovery. But maybe he should first do something to help contribute to it.

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Politics

U.S Economy has Strongest Growth in Over a Decade

The U.S. economy posted its strongest growth in more than a decade during the third quarter, supported by robust consumer spending and business investment, the Wall Street Journal reports.

Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of goods and services produced across the economy, grew at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.0% in the third quarter, theCommerce Department said Tuesday. That was up from the second quarter’s growth rate of 4.6% and the strongest pace since the third quarter of 2003.

The agency last month had estimated third-quarter GDP growth at 3.9%. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected a smaller upward revision, to 4.3% growth.

Tuesday’s report upgraded estimates for fixed nonresidential investment, a proxy for business spending, and personal spending, especially on services like health care.

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Politics

President’s Weekly Address – Things Are Better Now, Thanks To White House Policies

In his weekly address, President Obama took some time to praise the rebound of the American economy, something the president hasn’t done in a long time although evidence of economic prosperity is evident.

The steps we took nearly six years ago to rescue our economy and rebuild it on a new foundation helped make 2014 the strongest year for job growth since the 1990s.  Over the past 57 months, our businesses have created nearly 11 million new jobs.  And in a hopeful sign for middle-class families, wages are on the rise again.

Our investments in American manufacturing have helped fuel its best stretch of job growth since the ‘90s.  America is now the number one producer of oil and gas, saving drivers about 70 cents a gallon at the pump over last Christmas.  The auto industry we rescued is on track for its strongest year since 2005.  Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, about 10 million Americans have gained health insurance in the past year alone.  And since I took office, we have cut our deficits by about two-thirds.

Meanwhile, around the world, America is leading.  We’re leading the coalition to degrade and ultimately destroy ISIL.  We’re leading the global fight to combat the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.  We’re leading global efforts to address climate change, including last month’s joint announcement with China.  We’re turning a new page in our relationship with the Cuban people.

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Politics

President’s Weekly Address – Sharing in A Better Economy

In this week’s address, the President highlighted the good news in Friday’s jobs report – that American businesses added 314,000 new jobs this past month, making November the tenth month in a row that the private sector has added at least 200,000 new jobs. Even with a full month to go, 2014 has already been the best year of job creation since the 1990s. This number brings total private-sector job creation to 10.9 million over 57 consecutive months – the longest streak on record.

But even with this real, tangible evidence of our progress, there is always more that can be done. Congress needs to pass a budget and keep the government from a Christmas shutdown. We have an opportunity to work together to support the continued growth of higher-paying jobs by investing in infrastructure, reforming the business tax code, expanding markets for America’s goods and services, making common-sense reforms to the immigration system, and increasing the minimum wage.

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Politics unemployment rate

Unemployment Rate Falls Again, More Jobs Growth in October

Another month, more Americans find work and the economy gets stronger. But Democrats stayed silent, refusing to talk about the improving economy and record jobs creation during the midterm campaign season,  allowing Republicans to push their narrative that the “economy is falling apart.” And that narrative is what voters believed when they gave Republicans the Congress on Tuesday.

The U.S. created 214,000 jobs in October, nudging the unemployment rate down a notch to 5.8%, as many companies added workers to gear up for the holiday season. The economy has now added 200,000 workers or more for nine straight months, a feat last accomplished in 1994. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected a seasonally adjusted gain of 243,000 nonfarm jobs. So far in 2014 the U.S. has gained an average of 229,000 jobs a month, the fastest pace since 1999…

The labor-force participation rate, meanwhile, edged up to 62.8% from 62.7% as more people looked for work. Employment gains for September and August were revised up by a combined 31,000. The government said the 256,000 new jobs were created in September, up from a preliminary 248,000. August’s gain was raised to 203,000 from 180,000.

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Barack Obama Politics weekly address

President’s Weekly Address – Our Economy Has Improved, We Are Heading In The Right Direction

The economy has improved tremendously since President Obama took office. If you don’t believe me just turn off the doom and gloom from Fox News and the rest of the media, and go outside.

There are over 10 million more Americans working today as opposed to when 700.000 Americans were losing their jobs every month when Obama took over from Bush. Unemployment rate is below 6% and with a record 55 straight months of jobs growth, it is expected that the unemployment rate will continue to drop.

And ask Wall Street. It seems like every day the DOW has closed in record territory! Our GDP is improving, businesses are making money again and the deficit is decreasing.

Things are better and the economy is finally heading in the right direction. So the President used this week’s address to talk about some of these improvements and ways to keep the progress going.

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Barack Obama Politics Ronald Reagan

Forbes Compared Obama to Reagan – Obama “Outperformed” Reagan in “All Categories”

Bob Deitrick: ”President Reagan has long been considered the best modern economic President.  So we compared his performance dealing with the oil-induced recession of the 1980s with that of President Obama and his performance during this ‘Great Recession.’

“As this unemployment chart shows, President Obama’s job creation kept unemployment from peaking at as high a level as President Reagan, and promoted people into the workforce faster than President Reagan.

“President Obama has achieved a 6.1% unemployment rate in his sixth year, fully one year faster than President Reagan did.  At this point in his presidency, President Reagan was still struggling with 7.1% unemployment, and he did not reach into the mid-low 6% range for another full year.  So, despite today’s number, the Obama administration has still done considerably better at job creating and reducing unemployment than did the Reagan administration.

“We forecast unemployment will fall to around 5.4% by summer, 2015.  A rate President Reagan was unable to achieve during his two terms.”

……..

There are a lot of reasons voters elect a candidate.  Jobs and the economy are just one category of factors.  But, for those who place a high priority on jobs, economic performance and the markets the data clearly demonstrates which presidential administration has performed best.  And shows a very clear trend one can expect to continue into 2015.

Economically, President Obama’s administration has outperformed President Reagan’s in all commonly watched categories.  Simultaneously the current administration has reduced the deficit, which skyrocketed under Reagan.  Additionally, Obama has reduced federal employment, which grew under Reagan (especially when including military personnel,) and truly delivered a “smaller government.”  Additionally, the current administration has kept inflation low, even during extreme international upheaval, failure of foreign economies (Greece) and a dramatic slowdown in the European economy.

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Politics

The Economy – Nearly 10 Million New Jobs Added Over The Past 52 Months – PIC

Fox “News” and the Republicans would tell you different, but facts are facts!

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job creation Politics

52 Straight Months of Job Growth – 9.7 Million Jobs Created #ThanksObama

Over the last 52 consecutive months, the private sector has added over 9.7 milliom jobs to the economy.

Thanks Obama!

Categories
employment rate News Politics

Economic Good News – 192,000 Jobs Added in March

The Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated Friday that the overall job situation improved somewhat during the past three months over what it had first reported. The BLS reported in its monthly job assessment that 192,000 new private jobs were created in March. Governments at all levels added no new jobs. The official unemployment rate—which BLS calls U3 and calculates in a separate survey—remained steady at 6.7 percent.

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