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<p>The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose less than expected last week, pointing to some underlying strength in the labor market.</p> <p>Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 320,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Claims for the week ended March 8 were unrevised.</p>

President Obama gave a speech recently in which he, as he almost always does, patted himself on the back for what he described as a solid record on the economy. "We've now seen over four years of economic growth," he said. "We've seen 8.5 million new jobs created. We've seen the housing market bounce back. We've seen an auto industry that has come roaring back. We've seen manufacturing return for the first time since the 1990s." Obamaphiles in the press typically repeat these claims, arguing that, given the mess he inherited, no one could have done any better. But is...

Candidates squaring off in the Republican primary, seeking to unseat Democrat Jeff Merkley in November, all support turning Oregon federal forests over to local ownership. Jo Rae Perkins, former Linn County GOP Chair, noted 53 percent of Oregon land is owned by the federal government. “This land should not be owned by the federal government. It needs to go back to the state and back into private ownership. Let the people take care of the land,” Perkins said. “We’ve got environmentalists who don’t even live in Oregon who want to bring a lawsuit against every timber sale there is. And...

<p>KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Sprint announced that it is closing its Overland Park call center and laying off about 200 local employees who work there.</p>

Governor Rick Scott announced today that Florida’s unemployment rate for January 2014 was down to 6.1 percent, the lowest unemployment rate in the state since June 2008. Florida’s statewide unemployment rate has been below the national unemployment rate since August 2013, which was 6.6 percent in January 2014. Since December 2010, Florida has created 503,500 private sector jobs. Governor Rick Scott said, “With the steady increase in job creation and a five percentage point drop since December 2010 bringing the unemployment rate down to 6.1 percent, it is clear we’re making a positive impact on businesses and families in Florida....

America may have recovered handily from the Great Recession, and the bull market may now be five years old, but in no way should America think that it is remotely immune or even insulated from the next economic shock. It remains a fact that Americans just have too small a nest egg in savings — many with little or no savings and investments whatsoever. A report from the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI), which is collected on employees who participate or have the option to participate in retirement plans, says they just are not doing enough. Many metrics of the...

JFK won Macomb County, Michigan in 1964 by 75 percent. In 1980, Reagan won it by 66 percent. This heart of ‘Reagan Democrat’ country was closely split by Gore and Bush and Bush and Kerry… until Obama won it 53 to 45 in 2008 and by 51 to 47 in 2012. The Republican Party doesn’t need to worry about the Latino vote nearly as much as it should be worrying about its inability to connect with white working class Americans. The pro-amnesty GOP establishment’s electoral vision of a party of corporations and minority voters already exists.It’s called the Democratic Party.The...

Most commentators viewed the February jobs report released on March 7 as good news, indicating that the labor market is on a favorable growth path. A more careful reading shows that employment actually fell—as it has in four out of the past six months and in more than one-third of the months during the past two years. Although it is often overlooked, a key statistic for understanding the labor market is the length of the average workweek. Small changes in the average workweek imply large changes in total hours worked. The average workweek in the U.S. has fallen to 34.2...

Truth001 wrote: Putin has got to be laughing his rear end off because the US is the only place where the people eat their own. He is got to be saying I can do know wrong I'm a hero to those US media conservative outlets and its checkmate to the US left and its western allies. Oh by the way John post another picture of this guy next time or at least one with a shirt. If you want to look at this guy without a shirt do it in private. --Putin, Not Obama, is the Messiah Dear Comrade Pravda,...

The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced on March 12th that the total cost of employing a state or local government worker is 45% more than an equivalent worker in the private sector. For the month of December 2013, employers in private industry spent an average of $29.63 per employee hour worked, but the equivalent cost for a government worker averaged $42.89 per hour. Not only do government employees average 33% higher pay than those in the private sector, their pension and retirement benefit costs are now an incredible 254% higher also. Given that compensation formulas for federal,...

Restaurant chains are dropping like flies this week. On Monday pizza franchise Sbarro dipped into Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Following in its footsteps on Friday, sub shop Quiznos announced that it too would sink into bankruptcy as part of a “pre-packaged” deal to cut its debt by more than $400 million, or two-thirds.

As anyone with an ounce of sense in their noggin knows that the current unemployment situation in America is quite bleak. People are desperate for jobs. Companies are not hiring and are cutting back on hours. In fact, there are over fifty million Americans of working age who are officially unemployed or not working. With all this collective economic misery, we're being bombarded with utter nonsense that there's a labor shortage in the country and that we need higher immigration to fix the problem. Americans are out of work and the far left (and Big Business) wants to import foreign...

The problem of illegal immigration in America is only getting worse as the years go by. And as those on both sides of the aisle pitch their “solutions,” it’s become all too clear that too often they aren’t addressing one of the root causes of the problem to begin with. It’s true our borders are not secure at all, despite what the Obama administration would like you to believe. But why the mad dash to enter the States? Simply put, there are jobs to be had—even though we’re a nation struggling with high unemployment.

Big changes are coming to the labor market that people and governments aren't prepared for, Bill Gates believes.Speaking at Washington, D.C., economic think tank The American Enterprise Institute on Thursday, Gates said that within 20 years, a lot of jobs will go away, replaced by software automation ("bots" in tech slang, though Gates used the term "software substitution").This is what he said:"Software substitution, whether it's for drivers or waiters or nurses … it's progressing. ...  Technology over time will reduce demand for jobs, particularly at the lower end of skill set. ...  20 years from now, labor demand for lots...

As lawmakers press General Motors and regulators over their decade-long failure to correct a defective ignition switch, a new review of federal crash data shows that 303 people died after the air bags failed to deploy on two of the models that were recalled last month. The review of the air bag failures from 2003 to 2012, by the Friedman Research Corporation, adds to the mounting reports of problems that went unheeded before General Motors announced last month that it was recalling more than 1.6 million cars worldwide because of the defective switch.

- Initial jobless claims unexpectedly fell last week to 315,000, the lowest level since November, as the labor market showed signs of emerging from a winter chill. The number of first-time claims for unemployment benefits was down from 324,000 the previous week, the Labor Department said. Economists had projected claims to increase to 330,000. The four-week average fell by 6,250 last week to 330,500.

We're Starting To See Some Economic Green Shoots In The US Marc Chandler, Marc to Market Mar. 13, 2014, 11:56 AMUS retail sales rose 0.3% in February, a little more than expected. The news was blunted by sharp downward revisions to the January series, leaving the level of retail sales lower and pointing to somewhat less personal consumption to drive GDP here in Q1. The take away is that as the weather returns to a greater semblance of normalcy, the US economy should be expected to return to trend. Since mid-2009, the US has grown at an average quarterly annualized...

House Budget Chairman Paul D. Ryan told his local newspaper that Republican leaders do not have the votes yet to pass a rewrite of the nation’s immigration system. “We don’t have the votes right now,” the Wisconsin Republican told his local newspaper, the Janesville Gazette, in an interview Monday. “Right now, we’re working hard to find where that consensus lies.” Ryan said both the right and left are holding up an overhaul. A poll of House Republican offices by CQ Roll Call found that just 18 members, including Ryan, publicly support the immigration principles Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio...

Imperial Presidency: The White House says it will constrain companies from deciding which workers are white-collar enough not to punch a time card for overtime. We need more jobs, not more job-killing regulation. 'America does not stand still, and neither will I" is how President Obama defends playing God with the law, instead of acting as a constitutionally constrained chief executive. His rationale is that "wherever and whenever I can take steps without legislation to expand opportunity for more American families, that's what I'm going to do." From scrapping ObamaCare's mandates to disguising his health takeover's failure, to hiking the...

Mobile robots and "smart" computers are threatening to replace up to half the U.S. workforce within the next decade or two, according to a Bloomberg report. The report cites an Oxford University study that identified more than 700 occupations at risk of computer automation. Here are the jobs that are most at risk, based on the study.