The number of people holding jobs remains 12.9 million (or 8.4 percent) below February’s level. The current unemployment rate is 6.7 percentage points above that of February.
us economy
How Many Deaths Can We Live With?
The coronavirus emergency is raising ethical questions as communities reopen: how many deaths are we willing to live with, and whose deaths? The questions are at the heart of the debate on reopening, but are not being confronted honestly.
Economy Adds 130,000 Jobs, Extending Streak to 107 Months, Keeping Unemployment at 3.7%
Job growth has averaged 158,000 a month this year, below the average monthly gain of 223,000 in 2018. August’s employment gain was helped by the federal government’s hiring of 25,000 temporary census workers in preparation for the 2020 census.
Unemployment Rate At 3.7% Approaching 50-Year Low as Economy Adds 250,000 Jobs
It is the longest uninterrupted expansion since before the Great Depression. The average monthly gain this year has been just over 210,000 jobs, equal the average monthly gains of the last two Obama years.
If Your Boss Makes Millions, It’s Not Because of the ‘Market’
On average, America’s CEOs make 312 times what their workers take home — and that has nothing to do with supply and demand. Simply put, markets don’t set executive pay. Board rooms do.
Upwards Mobility Bunk: Don’t Lie to Poor Kids About Why They’re Poor, And Will Stay Poor
What happens when children born into poverty run face first into the crushing reality that the society they live in really isn’t that fair at all? Hard work has nothing to do with it.
Economy Adds 209,000 Jobs in 82nd Straight Month of Growth, Unemployment at 4.3%
The unemployment rate was last this low in 2001, at the end of the Clinton boom, though wages have only recently started to improve at a pace ahead of inflation.
U.S. Economy Adds 235,000 Jobs,
Continuing Long Pace of Robust Growth
The unemployment rate fell to 4.7 percent, not quite the post-Great Recession low of 4.6 percent recorded last November, but close enough.
Flagler Unemployment Rate Ticks Up for 4th Month in a Row, to 5.7%, Florida’s Up to 4.9%
The streak in increasing unemployment is echoed by an equally suggestive streak: five straight declines in the number of house sales closing in Flagler County, going back to May’s post-recession peak of 259 sales.
161,000 Jobs Created in October, Unemployment at 4.9%, Earnings Up at Fastest Pace Since 2008
The last jobs report before Election Day adds to a string of positive economic results, netting 1.8 million jobs so far this year and the second month in a row of strong earnings increases.
Flagler Job Holders and Workforce Surge By 400 in September as Unemployment Flattens
This is one of those unemployment report where the uptick in the unemployment rate is almost meaningless, compared to other numbers, at least as far as Flagler County’s economy is concerned.
Obama Should Tell the Truth About the American Economy
The president and everybody in his administration really must stop talking about how much better off we are today than we were eight years ago. Here is the disastrous truth.
What Slowdown? Jobs Surge to 255,000 in July, Wages Jump, Unemployment at 4.9%
June and July’s numbers have surged again, with 292,000 new jobs in June and 255,000 in July, bringing the year’s total to 1.3 million new jobs, and keeping the unemployment rate at 4.9 percent.
The American Dream, Canada-Bound
Our country has historically prided itself on being a socially mobile society, where your ability is more important than the race or class you’re born into. Not anymore. If you forgot to be born into a wealthy family, you’re better off today living in Canada or Northern Europe.
Economy Returns to Form With 287,000 New Jobs in June, Erasing Previous Month’s Retreat
The national economy in June added 287,000 jobs, its best performance in eight months and a sharp reversal from May’s slumber, when just 11,000 jobs were created–the worst monthly performance since the end of the Great Recession seven years ago.
Chain Restaurants Hurt the Economy, Pollute, And Pay Poverty Wages. Eat Local Instead.
It’s time for big chains to strengthen local economies by keeping food purchases local and ending worker exploitation. But they don’t. Meanwhile, writes Anna Meyer, look for locally owned restaurants that source local and support raising the minimum wage for all workers.
Economy Adds 215,000 Jobs But Unemployment Rises to 5% As Workers Flood Back
The more accurate, so-called U-6 unemployment rate, which includes part-time and discouraged workers, places unemployment and underemployment at 9.8 percent, and 11.5 percent in Florida.
U.S. Economy Adds Robust 242,000 Jobs, Leaving Unemployment Rate at 4.9%
After a relatively weaker December, when only 172,000 jobs were created, the job market resumed the late 1990s-like pace it has maintained for most of the past two years.
Economy Adds 292,000 Jobs in December for a 1990s-Like Total of 2.65 Million Over the Year
The seven years of Obama’s presidency have netted 8.3 million jobs, after accounting for the millions of jobs lost in the housing crash, but warning signs abound.
Unemployment Stays Flat in Flagler, at 5.9%, and in Florida, at 5.1%, as Workforce Stalls
All numbers dipped a little in Flagler County’s economic graphs in November in what amounts to a tepid unemployment report locally and in Florida. But most numbers are still heading in the right direction.
Unemployment Rate Falls to 7-Year Best of 5.1% With Job Creation at 173,000
The 2015 total is at 1.7 million new jobs–400,000 more jobs created in eight months than the entire eight years of the second Bush’s presidency.
Why You’re Getting Poorer: iPhones Aren’t The Economic Engine Cars and Electricity Were
Robert Gordon argues rising standards of living brought by cars, indoor plumbing and electricity can;t be replaced by iPhones and the internet. Martin Feldstein disagrees.
Service Specter: Rick Scott’s Job-Growth Puffery Masks Florida’s Low-Wage Future
About two of three of those new jobs is a low-paying service-sector one, mirroring years of Florida job growth in low-pay, no-benefits, dead-end jobs in Team Scott’s tourism-driven economy.
Another Strong Growth Month Adds 223,000 Jobs, Lowering Unemployment to 5.3%
For all the economy’s overall improvements, when it comes to the majority of workers, there are no improvements where it matters: in families’ standards of living.
Economy Surges With 280,000 Jobs, But Unemployment Remains at 5.5%
The new jobs bring the total to 12.6 million private-sector jobs created over the last 63 months, one of the better performances of extended growth since World War II.
Economy Resumes Climb With Healthy 223,000 Jobs, Unemployment Ticks Down to 5.4%
The 5.4 percent unemployment rate is another new low since the Great Recession: the rate was last this low exactly seven years ago, in May 2008, when it was beginning to rise rapidly.
Job Creation Slows to 126,000, Unemployment Rate Stays at 5.5%
Several factors have slowed the economy in the first quarter: harsh winter conditions, recession in Europe and a surging dollar, which hurts exports. Even lower oil prices, which have benefited consumers at the pump, have crimped investment in the energy sector, reducing job expansion there.
Another Strong Month Adds 295,000 Jobs to Economy, Lowering Unemployment to 5.5%
Wages continue to sag, growing by just 3 cents over the month, and just 2 percent over the past year, not enough to overcome inflation, let alone give workers a sense that they’re getting ahead.
Strong Job-Creation Pace Continues, Adding 1 Million in Last 3 Months
The U.S. economy added 257,000 jobs in January, continuing a job-creation pace not seen since 1999, when the economy added 3.18 million jobs overall. The unemployment rate ticked up to 5.7 percent.
U.S. Unemployment Drops to 5.8% as Economy Adds 214,000 Jobs, Maintaining Average
The nation’s unemployment rate dropped to 5.8 percent in October, a level last seen in July 2008, when the rate was rapidly rising, and the economy added 214,000 jobs, continuing a steady if somewhat slow recovery.
Unemployment Falls to 5.9% as Economy Adds 248,000 Jobs, Brightening Outlook
After nine months in the 6 percent range, the national unemployment rate in September fell to 5.9 percent, reaching a level last seen in July 2008, when it was rising fast.
Tepid Jobs Report Leaves Unemployment at 6.1% With Lowest Job Creation Since January
The economy created just 142,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department reported this morning, the lowest total since January, when 129,000 jobs were created. The unemployment rate dropped by just a decimal point, to 6.1 percent.
Do the Math: You Couldn’t Live On Minimum Wage
Imagine living on $290 a week before taxes. It’s not a wage you can live on, Mark O’Brien, a minimum wage earner for a time recently, argues, challenging opponents of raising the minimum wage to try it for themselves.
Economy Adds 209,000 Jobs But Unemployment Rate Ticks Up to 6.2%
Mediocre: it’s the The best that can be said about the unemployment report for July as the economy added 209,000 jobs, about 20,000 jobs short of expectations, and the unemployment rate edged up to 6.2 percent, from 6.1 percent the previous month.
Consumer Confidence in Florida Hits Another Post-Recession High as US Economy Grows 4%
The consumer-confidence report coincides with the Department of Commerce’s report Wednesday morning that the national economy grew at a brisk annual 4 percent rate in the second quarter, compared to a shrinking of 2.1 percent in the first quarter.
Flagler Unemployment Ticks Up For 2nd Straight Month, Masking Vast Improvements
Despite traditional unemployment figures, the jobs situation in Flagler County is vastly improved, and continues to improve, with a 38 percent drop in people without jobs since four years ago and a labor force stronger by 3,000.
288,000 New Jobs in June Add Up to 2.5 Million This Year, Most in Eight Years
Unlike in previous months, the bright jobs picture in June was the result of more people getting jobs and fewer people losing them–as opposed to more people dropping out of the labor force.
Job Creation Exceeds 200,000 For 4th Straight Month Despite Slowdown in Economic Growth
Despite a first-quarter decline of 1 percent in economic growth, the economy added 217,000 jobs in May for a total of 1.05 million jobs so far this year, a robust, sustained growth not seen since the end of the Great Recession.
Hiding Behind Barricades of Indifference as Income Disparities Corrode the Social Contract
The very rich, who are already less and less in touch with the lives of ordinary Americans, will further barricade themselves to avoid having to witness the decline of a country that is no longer about ensuring a decent standard of living for the greatest number of people.
Unemployment Falls Sharply to 6.3% as Economy Adds Nearly 300,000 Jobs, But Labor Pool Shrinks
People are reentering the workforce, they’re applying for work, they’re finding jobs, with an economy in April adding more net jobs for the 50th consecutive month–ironically, one of the longest peace-time recoveries on record, following the Great Recession of 2007-08. But a huge number of people are also leaving the workforce. That has resulted in an unemployment report for April that looks very bright at first, but that dims somewhat when analyzed more closely.
Flagler Unemployment Creeps Up Again, to 9.4%, But Labor Force and Net Jobs Grow
Flagler County’s unemployment rate again rose in February, to 9.4 percent, a decimal-point increase over the previous month and some 80 more people went on unemployment. But The county’s overall employment went up sharply, by 364 (for a total of 31,976), and the county’s labor force went up even more, by 442–both signs of growing strength in the local economy as more workers seem encouraged to join the labor force, and more workers are actually finding jobs.
If It’s Economic Growth You Want, Raising the Minimum Wage Crushes Wall Street Bonuses Every Time
If the $26.7 billion Wall Streeters pulled in on their bonuses last year had instead gone to minimum wage workers, our economy would be expected to grow by about $32.3 billion — more than triple the $10.4 billion boost expected from the Wall Street bonuses.
Economy Adds 175,000, Reversing
Early Winter Plunge; Unemployment at 6.7%
Despite successive cold spells and snow storms in the east, the national economy added 175,000 jobs in February, reversing a two-month trend that saw job creation fall. The unemployment rate, however, ticked up a decimal point, to 6.7 percent.
Permanent Temp Workers in the U.S. Are at the Mercy of Some of the Weakest Labor-Protection Laws in the West
“Permatemping’ cases highlight a lack of U.S. protections for temp workers., who are exposed to more dangers in return for far less job protection or benefits. Other countries limit the length of temp jobs, guarantee equal pay and restrict dangerous work.
Unemployment Falls to 5-Year Best 6.6%, But Job Creation Weakens to 113,000
The national unemployment rate continues its steady downward fall, to 6.6 percent in January–its best showing since the 6.5 percent rate recorded in October 2008, when it was on its way up–but for the second month in a row, job creation fell far short of expectations, to 113,000. It was a revised 75,000 in December, the worst successive two-month results in a year and a half.
Martin Luther King’s Nightmare: The Inequality Behind Forbes’ Richest 400
The net worth of just 400 billionaires is on par with the collective wealth of our more than 14 million African- American households. Both groups possess some $2 trillion, about three percent of our national net worth, an economic injustice Martin Luther King would have decried, argues Bob Lord.
How I’m Graduating My Children From College Debt-Free: Planning, and Lots of Hard Work
Explaining what it takes to develop college-ready students and debt-free parents, columnist and Matanzas High teacher Jo An n Nahiriny describes the frustrations of dealing with students and families who don’t plan ahead and busts the myth that a college education must be debt-ridden.
Yes, That Too: Your Employee-Provided Health Insurance Costs Are Going Up in 2014
The new year will likely bring higher deductibles and co-payments, penalties for not joining wellness programs and smaller employer contributions toward family coverage, but Obamacare isn’t entirely to blame: it is only accelerating pre-existing conditions.
Unemployment Falls to 7%, Lowest Level in 5 Years, as Economy Adds 203,000 Jobs
The national unemployment rate fell to 7 percent in November, the lowest level since December 2008, when it was 6.8 percent. The economy added 203,000 jobs over the month, continuing relatively strong growth since summer despite the 17-day government shut-down in October.
What Government Shutdown? U.S. Economy Adds 204,000 Jobs, Beating Expectations
The three-month tally of 605,000 jobs is the best three-month total in almost two years, though the unemployment rate still went up by a decimal point, to 7.3 percent as the labor force shrank by 720,000 in October, a reflection of the government shutdown.