Free Republic

Health Care: Remember when ObamaCare backers said there was no way the law would push employers to drop their health plans? A new report calls the lie on that one, too. A big concern raised by critics of ObamaCare was that employers would shift their health costs onto taxpayers — dropping insurance benefits knowing workers could access guaranteed, often subsidized coverage in an ObamaCare exchange. Typical of the left's response was a Families USA "fact sheet" that called such worries a "myth." "Employers that offer coverage will continue to do so," it declared. The liberal Urban Institute likewise promised the...

Barack Obama's approval polls slipped precariously closer to the 30 percent range this week, as many more Americans expressed deep dissatisfaction with his failed presidency. As Obama frantically runs around the country trying to find a motivating message that resonates with the base of his party, it's obvious that he's in over his head, without a serious, substantive agenda, or any workable idea of how to get America moving again. He's still peddling the same shady shell game to raise the minimum wage, an idea the Congressional Budget Office says would kill up to one million jobs. The Gallup Poll...

Layoffs in the technology sector could reach their highest level in five years, according to a group that tracks employments trends. So far this year, tech employers have announced plans to cut payrolls by 48,402, a 68 percent increase over the 28,883 layoffs announced during the same period in 2013, according to a special report released Monday by Challenger, Gray & Christmas. At the current rate, the 2014 year-end total could be the highest since 2009, when tech-sector job cuts hit 174,629. The highest total on record was 695,581 job cuts in 2001, when the tech bubble in the stock...

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (CBS) — A major pharmaceutical company is planning another round of layoffs that again will hit Montgomery County hard. On the heels of more than 650 job cuts at its West Point manufacturing and research plant in late 2013 and earlier this year, Merck plans to let go another 600 employees by the end of August. The company has already filed notices with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor which says the jobs are being cut in North Wales and Lansdale. County Commissioner Josh Shapiro is disappointed with the news, but says they’re working to help those affected.

Most people believe "a happy career" and "a fat paycheck" are mutually exclusive — but online jobs community CareerBliss.com recently found that these two things sometimes do go hand in hand. CareerBliss compiled its new list of jobs that can make you happy and rich by analyzing more than 50,000 independent company reviews from 2013 and 2014. The reviews are from employees all over the U.S. who evaluated 10 factors that affect work happiness — one's relationship with their boss and coworkers; workplace environment; job resources; compensation; growth opportunities; company culture; company reputation; daily tasks; and job control over the...

"An individual applied for a customer-service job, and when asked what he might not like about the job, he said, 'Dealing with people.'" "I had somebody list their prison time as a job. And an exotic dancer who called herself a 'customer service representative.'"

Just for once, wouldn't it be great if President Obama actually defended American business, instead of attacking it? Just once?Wouldn't it be great if Obama acknowledged that U.S. firms are overburdened by the highest corporate tax rate among developed countries, and as a result are becoming less and less competitive? Wouldn't it be great if he said he wants to fix this tax imbalance in order to grow the economy faster and give U.S. businesses a leg up on the global scene? Couldn't he just say that? He could say it like this: "Look, I don't want to drive businesses...

Myles UdlandJuly 27, 2014 Wage growth is close to not being growth at all. On August 1, we'll get the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Last month, the report showed that the economy added 288,000 jobs in June, with wages growing 2% year of year. Unfortunately, when taking into account the rate of inflation, "real" wage growth was flat. In Business Insider's latest Most Important Charts In The World feature, Ellen Zentner, senior U.S. economist at Morgan Stanley, highlighted the following chart, which shows how real wage growth has slowed to, well, no growth at all.(snip)(snip)

Swift Boat Captn wrote: And things were so great before Obama took over. Let's go back to the Chimp's economy that he started by turning surpluses into deficits then finished by losing 800,000 jobs per month and Wall Street on the brink of extinction. - This Won’t End End Well: Obama Giveth X and Taketh Away 7.6 Percent More Dear Comrade Kerry, In February 2007, when the terrible, evil George W. Bush was president, there were 2,427,000 more jobs than there are today. In February 2007, when the terrible, evil George W. Bush was president, there were 5,167,000 fewer unemployed....

Just the other day when I was home in Dunn, a woman standing in the checkout line told me that she felt as though she had less money in her pocket. And, unfortunately, she’s right. Did you know that the average clothing cost for children has risen $310 during the president’s term and that food costs have risen an average of $210? Or that an average family of four is missing as much as $1,120 from their monthly budget? I bet women do. No one understands the true implications of these missing dollars better than women. Women are the ones...

Surveillance cameras were rolling as thieves made off with $30,000-$40,000 worth of smartphones and tablets from a Miami Gardens business in 30 seconds flat.... "It's very frustrating because we're a small business," said [owner Gilberto] Maakaroun. "We're trying to grow the business, grow the company."

The corporate inversions just keep on coming, and the White House and its allies are calling them unpatriotic. But it's a funny sort of "patriotism" that insists American businesses put the Treasury's insatiable appetite for revenue ahead of the best interests of their customers, shareholders, and employees. The latest inversion — the term for a corporate merger or acquisition that allows a US company to reincorporate overseas — is the largest to date: Chicago-based pharmaceutical company AbbVie is paying $55 billion to acquire Shire PLC, an Irish drug maker incorporated in the United Kingdom, but with a manufacturing and management...

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell to the lowest level in nearly 8-1/2 years last week, suggesting the labor market recovery was gaining traction. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits declined 19,000 to a seasonally adjusted 284,000 for the week ended July 19, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That was the lowest level since February 2006, and confounded economists' expectations for a rise to 308,000. The prior week's claims were revised to show 1,000 more applications received than previously reported.

New applications for unemployment benefits plunged last week, reaching an eight-and-a-half-year low and suggesting increasing strength in the labor market. Initial claims for jobless aid, a proxy for layoffs, fell by 19,000 to a seasonally adjusted 284,000 in the week ended July 19...

The Obama administration will unveil new rules Wednesday proposing more stringent safety standards on trains carrying crude oil and other flammable fuels. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx is expected to announced the new rules, which will include standards for tank cars, speed limits for trains carrying crude oil, brake standards and testing for oil and other flammable liquids, according to a Wall Street Journal report. A Department of Transportation spokesperson confirmed to The Hill that the announcement will be made Wednesday. The federal rules have been anxiously awaited by the railroad and oil industries, which have met with White House and...

In a speech last week in Delaware, President Obama was positively bursting with pride about what his policies have produced since the economic recovery started five years ago. What Obama didn´t say in his speech is that [snip] many Americans are doing a whole lot worse than they were when Obama's economic recovery began five years ago.

U.S. consumer prices rose in June as the cost of gasoline surged, but the overall trend continued to point to a gradual build up of inflationary pressures. The Labor Department said on Tuesday its Consumer Price Index increased 0.3 percent last month after May's 0.4 percent gain. Gasoline accounted for two-thirds of the rise in prices last month. In the 12 months through June, the CPI increased 2.1 percent after a similar rise in May.

For the first time this entire election cycle The New York Times Senate forecast at The Upshot predicts Udall has a greater chance of losing reelection than winning (53%-47%). This is a huge deal, as The Upshot tries to go beyond just the polls and factor in other intangibles about a race, such as, incumbency, fundraising, a state’s past election history among others, who the liberals at the NYT want to win. All those factors in The Upshot model lean heavily Udall’s way. Yet, despite this inherent, built-in advantage, Udall can’t overcome one thing: the people of Colorado feel he...

Study: Minimum wage hikes don’t kill jobsBy Kevin McArdle July 21, 2014 5:14 AMA new study by the Center for Economic and Research Policy shows that job growth in states that increased their minimum wages this year is far more robust when compared to states that did not hike the minimum wage. Thirteen states increased their minimum wages in 2014, including New Jersey. According to the report, the average change in payrolls in states that implemented minimum wage hikes was 0.99 percent.  For states that didn’t see a minimum wage hike, it was 0.68 percent.However, the report said there is...

SEATTLE (VR) – Does raising the minimum wage kill jobs? Most probably not. Does it increase jobs? We don’t know for sure, but it might. Or at least these are the inferences one is likely to make from a recent report from the Center for Economic and Policy Research. It turns out that 12 out of 13 states that raised their minimum wage on January 1, 2013 are experiencing increases in employment. The report also states that the average change in employment for these 13 states is +.99% while the average change in employment in the remaining states is +.68%....