But…but…this goes against the Republican narrative! American Jobs Act — Final There really aren’t any controversial elements in here at all. Yes, Republicans are going to push back on any additional spending, but it’ll be hard for them to break this apart and only get the tax cuts through. So it’ll be up to them [...]

You can’t look at today’s news and do anything but wince. 18,000 jobs created and the numbers in April and May were revised downward. Unpacking the numbers a bit, 57,000 private sector jobs were created, while budget cuts pushed 39,000 folks out of work in the public sector. So how are businesses doing? Quite well… [...]

Looks like businesses are finally feeling some confidence. Maybe they read my post? Probably not. Regardless, if the above number holds up when the government reports on Friday it would represent triple what Wall Street was predicting. Daily Finance has more good news: Separately, private placement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said planned layoff announcements [...]

Here ya go… Pretty straightforward. Dems aren’t going to win any economic ingenuity awards, but we’re out of the recession, private sector job growth is still holding on and we’ve got the shopping season coming up, which should drive even more. But what if the Republicans had their way? Well, let’s refer back to the [...]

The stimulus did nothing for our economy? It didn’t prevent a second Great Depression? It didn’t help create demand when we literally had deflation? It didn’t prop up a system that relied on consumer spending when consumers weren’t spending? The CBO shines the light: In its latest quarterly assessment of the act, the CBO said [...]

The good news is that we added 90,000 jobs more than expected, and this job growth is the most in four years. Still, the unemployment rate went up and could stay there for a while. Because if our economy keeps growing and we continue to add more than a quarter million jobs per month, but [...]

As Americans, we’re accustomed to a certain standard of living. Nothing lavish, mind you. Most of us don’t have big, fancy houses or expensive cars. Most of us don’t have investment portfolios bursting at the seams. But we do have families and we do have responsibilities, and given that we pay our fair share into [...]

I wrote yesterday about the scant number of jobs created in the last 10 years, but when compared to the past six decades the news becomes that much bleaker. Wash Post illustrates… I’m not saying we should have guarantees our overall net worth should go up or that our economy has to add jobs, but [...]

A bit of good news to report today amid the preparations for New Year’s celebrations. Jobless claims fell more than expected last week. From WSJ: Initial claims for unemployment benefits fell by 22,000 to a seasonally adjusted 432,000 in the week ended Dec. 26, the lowest level since July 19, 2008. The four-week average of [...]

Nobody’s signing “Happy Days Are Here Again,” but any significant downward movement in the unemployment rate is reason for some early holiday cheer. And there’s more good news beyond this. I’ll share a chart that shows this after the numbers. From WSJ: U.S. job losses in November posted the smallest drop since the start of [...]

We’ve crossed the psychological barrier and this spells bad news for Dems unless they can turn it around in the next couple months. Because this is the highest rate since 1983 and you’ll be hearing that time and time again in the next month. Here’s more about those numbers: Among the major worker groups, the [...]

You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t been posting a lot in the past couple weeks and that’s because the day job has been VERY consuming…but in a good way. Basically, over the past year I’ve been working on developing a new website for AMC Theatres and it just launched Monday. On it you can find [...]

Numbers just came out today and in July the number was 247,000. This is obviously disappointing because the numbers had been consistently dropping since the beginning of the year and this uptick was not expected. More from Reuters: Analysts polled by Reuters had expected non-farm payrolls to drop 180,000 in September and the unemployment rate [...]

And the unemployment rate dropped to 9.4%. This is pretty significant for a few reasons. First, there’s just the psychological effect of 10% unemployment. The media had been positioning that as the dreaded magic number and now it appears that we’ll never reach it. Second, economists projected 325,000 job losses for July, so coming in [...]

If we’re headed towards economic recovery, the path is unlikely to be a smooth one. At least that’s what June’s unemployment numbers indicate as the nation lost 467,000 jobs, more than 100,000 above estimates. With unemployment now at 9.5%, a 26 year high, most economists foresee double-digit unemployment before the end of the year with [...]

Solar Energy: “We’re trying to lay a foundation for a new economy…We are investing not in digging more oil wells but in building more wind farms, investing in solar energy….We are going to have an economy that [is] not based on a bubble.” (Media Teleconference, 6/8/09) This Tuesday, Joe Biden will be traveling to a [...]

Hello this is Mike Fritz from the American News Project. We have a new story out that focuses on those most affected by the bailout of General Motors: laid off autoworkers. It examines one of the central tensions in the public takeover of the company: Should federal dollars be spent building a lean, mean business [...]

As you may recall, on the campaign trail, Joe Biden was heralded as “head of the Middle Class taskforce” – whose activities can be viewed here. Yet the question remains: What has Joe Biden done for the Middle Class? Several months ago, I checked the Middle Class Task Force site only to find a discussion [...]

So let’s get this straight… $87 billion of the $787 billion has already been spent in the past 3.5 months, and the monthly unemployment claims were cut in half last month (when compared to the previous 6 months) and the stimulus isn’t working? This is in response to Republican lawmakers, specifically Sarah Palin, continuing to [...]

While the number of layoffs in May fell below expectations, the unemployment rate has now risen to 9.4%, a 25 year high. With 14.5 million Americans unemployed and countless others underemployed, any full recovery will have to be a long one. Many economists believe the jobless rate will hit 10 percent by the end of [...]