Free Republic

Here’s something that many Americans -- including some of the smartest and most educated among us -- don’t know: The official unemployment rate, as reported by the U.S. Department of Labor, is extremely misleading. Right now, we’re hearing much celebrating from the media, the White House and Wall Street about how unemployment is “down” to 5.6%. The cheerleading for this number is deafening. The media loves a comeback story, the White House wants to score political points and Wall Street would like you to stay in the market. None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member...

More layoffs have hit the Texas oil field services industry. Industrial conglomerate GE notified state regulators last week it will lay off 330 employees in the East Texas manufacturing operations it acquired from oil-field pump maker Lufkin Industries. It’s the latest sign the collapse of petroleum prices is forcing oil companies to jettison workers and adjust to much leaner profits. The U.S. benchmark oil price has halved since June. In a letter to the Texas Workforce Commission disclosed Monday, GE said it is cutting 45 percent of the manufacturing, sales, engineering and other jobs at its Buck Creek plant starting...

The Economist January 31, 2015America's labour market boomed in 2014. By December there were 3m more people in work than a year earlier. Unemployment was 1.1 percentage points lower. The ratio of jobseekers to openings fell from a peak of seven to one in 2009 to two to one in November 2014. What was behind this? The answer in a new study will not please Democrats. The job market is hot largely because of a cold-hearted Republican reform, it concludes. Before the financial crisis, jobless workers in most states qualified only for 26 weeks of unemployment benefits. In June 2008...

A speaker’s bio written for former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm states that in her talks she “details the successful strategies she used to create jobs, attract international investment, improve education & job training as governor.” According to Keppler Speakers, Granholm costs $20,000 to $30,000 to “discuss how she led the charge to rebuild the state's economy.” During Granholm’s eight year tenure as governor, Michigan lost more jobs than any other state in the nation and had among the worst economic collapses of any going back to the Great Depression. Michigan lost 576,900 jobs over Granholm’s two terms and led the...

The American people have been lied to over and over and over again by this President and members of the Democratic party.... Its time for a change If it were not for President Obama and Democrats, would you know that the Taliban is not a terrorist organization but just an “armed insurgency?” The Taliban shotMalala Yousafzai, a 16-year-old Pakistani child advocate for girl’s education, in the face because she simply wanted an education. Then how could we forget the December attack in Pakistan where the Taliban killed 145 people, mostly children in their school uniforms. What about the story of...

In a 1994 “Seinfeld” episode, George realizes that “every decision that I have ever made in my entire life has been wrong. My life is the complete opposite of everything I want it to be.” Jerry replies: “If every instinct you have is wrong, then the opposite would have to be right.” So Costanza approaches a gorgeous woman in the coffee shop and announces, “My name is George. I’m unemployed and I live with my parents.” To his surprise, she’s interested. He lands a job with the Yankees after insulting George Steinbrenner. Maybe President Obama ought to take Jerry’s advice...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits tumbled last week to its lowest level in nearly 15 years, adding to bullish signals on the labor market. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 43,000 to a seasonally adjusted 265,000 for the week ended Jan. 24, the lowest since April 2000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. It was the biggest weekly decline since November 2012. The drop, which far exceeded economists' expectations for a fall to only 300,000, probably exaggerates the strength of the jobs market as the data included the Martin Luther King...

For many people who didn’t grow up in or around New York City, there are a few things that come to mind when they hear the name “Brooklyn.” Many automatically think of hipsters and indie rock concerts. Some think of artsy lofts and farmers markets. Others think of “brownstone Brooklyn,” where one can potentially afford a cute home and raise a middle-class family without the distance and suburban-like qualities of Queens. What people typically don’t think about are the underprivileged communities that exist here, many of which have become home to people priced out of their old homes in brownstone...

W orking professionals across sectors might not have much to cheer this year as salary increases likely to see a “marginal” rise compared with last year’s pay hikes in India. According to a study released today by global management consultancy Hay Group, employees across job roles can expect an average of 11.3 percent wage hike in 2015 led by FMCG and chemical industry. Last year, the actual average salary increase was recorded at 10.9 percent across industries, the report noted. “The study that we have conducted predicts that the pay raise in 2015 will remain in double digits. At this...

A new study finds that 60% of the jobs gained last year were due to the fact that Republicans managed to block one of President Obama's key "middle class economics" policies in Congress. Let's dial the clock back to December 2013. At that point, 1.3 million faced an end to the federal unemployment benefits that Congress had extended repeatedly in the wake of the recession. Obama predicted doom if this were to happen: "Economists have said failing to extend unemployment benefits is going to have a drag on economic growth for next year." Unemployment insurance, he said, is "one of...

The world’s first robotized sales assistants were rolled out last month in California. They are nifty, cute — and terrifying. Nicknamed OSHbots, the two machines cost $50,000 apiece, are five feet of plastic on wheels and carry built-in natural language processors, computers, product scanners and navigation tools. Named after the Orchard Supply Hardware store where they work in San Jose, they greet customers, ask if they need help, identify items, then offer to guide them to the appropriate aisle without bumping into anyone or anything. At night, they do inventory by cruising the store to identify missing products and update...

New information from the federal government suggests workers’ interest in unions continues to fall, with union membership reaching its lowest rate in 100 years. According to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics today, the union membership rate fell to 11.1 percent, with just 14.6 million wage and salaried workers maintaining membership. In 2013, the union membership rate was 0.2 percentage points higher, at 11.3 percent.

.....it is clear that millions are struggling to hang on to accouterments that most experts consider essential to a middle-class life..... Lisa Land, 49, is one of those who have dropped through the hatch. She gets by on her father’s $1,300 monthly Social Security checks and by having her adult daughter pitch in for groceries. Her circumstances are a stark change from just a few years ago, when she considered herself firmly in the middle class. Despite a relatively modest salary, her pay and other resources went a long way in tiny Eden, N.C., where she worked for 13 years...

[When] Obama delivered his first State of the Union address in 2009, 53% of Americans considered themselves middle class. Six years later, just 44% of Americans define themselves that way..... The middle class itself, however, has changed notably during the relatively short time Obama has been in office, as the chart below shows. The portion of Americans who consider themselves middle class has dropped (as has the portion considering themselves upper class), while the ranks who call themselves lower class have swelled.

Near-term global warming projections (brick-red region) on[0.13, 0.50] K decade-1, compared with observations (green region)that fall on [0.0, 0.11] K decade-1, and the simple model's 21stcentury warming projections (yellow arrow), falling on 0.09 [0.06,0.12] K decade-1. Credit: Science China PressA major peer-reviewed climate physics paper in the first issue (January 2015: vol. 60 no. 1) of the prestigious Science Bulletin (formerly Chinese Science Bulletin), the journal of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, exposes elementary but serious errors in the general-circulation models relied on by the UN's climate panel, the IPCC. The errors were the reason for concern about Man's effect...

In the autumn of 2013 I was in my first term of school in a decade. I had two jobs; my husband, Tom, was working full-time; and we were raising our two small girls. It was the first time in years that we felt like maybe things were looking like they’d be OK for a while. After a gruelling shift at work, I was unwinding online when I saw a question from someone on a forum I frequented: Why do poor people do things that seem so self-destructive? I thought I could at least explain what I’d seen and how...

The Texas Workforce Commission released state employment data today for the month of December, and job growth in the Lone Star State continues to lead, and in fact carry the nation’s improving labor market as the chart above shows. Here are some highlights of the December employment report for Texas:1. Texas ended the year with the state’s largest ever year-over-year payroll gain with the eye-popping addition of 457,900 new jobs between December 2013 and December 2014. That’s more than 1,700 new payroll jobs that were added every business day last year in the Lone Star State, and 220 new jobs...

Washington (CNN)Senators worked till midnight on Thursday moving through a series of amendments to a bill that would green-light construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, but Senate Democrats wanted to stay longer. At least, they were frustrated with what they said was a double standard from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who moved to end debate on the bill and set up a final vote next week after tabling a number of Democratic amendments. The Senate had already voted on 15 amendments, 10 of which were offered by Democrats and another five from Republicans. But Democrats cried foul at...

..............[U.S. Senator Jeff] Sessions last week accused the tech industry of perpetuating a "hoax" by claiming there is a shortage of qualified U.S. tech workers. "The tech industry's promotion of expanded temporary visas -- such as the H-1B -- and green cards is driven by its desire for cheap, young and immobile labor," wrote Sessions, in a memo he sent last week to fellow lawmakers. Last summer, Sessions attacked Microsoft's push for more H-1B visas as it laid off 18,000 employees. Now, as subcommittee chairman, Sessions will have the ability to conduct investigations and hold oversight hearings. That Senate memo...

The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week fell less than expected, dampening optimism over the strength of the labor market, official data showed on Thursday. In a report, the U.S. Department of Labor said the number of individuals filing for initial jobless benefits in the week ending January 17 decreased by 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 307,000 from the previous week’s total of 317,000. Analysts had expected initial jobless claims to decline by 17,000 to 300,000 last week. Continuing jobless claims in the week ended January 10 rose to 2.443 million from 2.428...