Free Republic

As a declared presidential candidate, Senator Rand Paul (R., Ky.) should generate even bigger headlines when he addresses black audiences, as he has at Howard University and other venues. When he was executive of mainly Democratic Milwaukee County, Governor Scott Walker (R., Wis.) appealed to black voters; his reelection majorities consistently increased. These and other Republicans should ask black Americans for their votes from now through November 2016. They should do so by challenging blacks to ask themselves an honest question: “What, exactly, have you gained by handing Obama 95 percent of your votes in 2008 and 93 percent in...

There were 281,000 first-time claims for unemployment for the week ending April 4, the Department of Labor reported Thursday. That was an increase from the previous week's revised 268,000 jobless claims, adjusted for seasonal fluctuations, but better than investors expected. The four-week moving average of claims, meanwhile, fell by 3,000 to 282,250. That average was the lowest since June of 2000, reflecting the ongoing improvement in the U.S. labor market. Low first-time claims for unemployment insurance benefits are viewed as a positive sign for the economy, as fewer layoffs generally indicate greater net hiring. Thursday's good news comes after Friday's...

Poor Barbra Streisand. Just last week the renowned economist (who also describes herself as a “singer,” “actress,” and “activist”) penned an opinion piece titled “Have You Heard the Good News?” about how well the economy is performing under Barack Obama. It was a pep rally of sorts, and all that was missing were the pom-poms. “President Obama’s Administration, with only opposition from the Republicans,” she gushed, “has steadily helped put more than 11 million Americans back to work in the private sector.” Then two days later the dismal jobs report for March was released. Bad timing, for sure. The statistic...

12,000 non-disabled adults were in Maine’s SNAP program before Jan. 1 - a number that dropped to 2,680 by the end of March. More than 9,000 Maine residents have been removed from the state's food stamp program since Republican Gov. Paul LePage's administration began enforcing work and volunteer requirements. The new rules prevent adults who are not disabled and do not have dependents from receiving food stamps for more than three months - unless they work at least 20 hours a week, participate in a work-training program or meet volunteering requirements. DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew said the goal of the...

There was a time when it was possible to ‘retire’ from investment banking in your 30s. That time has passed. As the the trajectory of banking careers changes, 30 has instead become the age at which you must be positioned at a firm that will see you through to your 40s and beyond. Swapping banks when you’re aged 30+ is increasingly challenging. Headhunters working across business areas bemoan the lack of recruitment beyond vice president (VP) level. “Banks have become incredibly cost-conscious,” says a partner at an M&A search boutique. “They’re not making a 25% return on equity any more...

How many times have we seen this? Every time the economy seems ready to pull out of its 2% growth rut and shift into a higher gear, the engine stalls. It's happening again in 2015. Employers added a flimsy 126,000 jobs in March — and with downward revisions from previous months, the job gains were half that high. The latest estimate for first-quarter GDP is below 1%, with one Federal Reserve Bank predicting closer to zero. Businesses aren't buying into the robust expansion story that President Obama has been peddling in his "mission accomplished" victory tour across the country —...

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker had the lowest unfavorability rating in a new poll of Republican voters, and scored the highest net-positive favorability at 35%. A fresh poll of Republican voters brings good news for expected 2016 presidential contender Scott Walker — and the opposite for New Jersey’s Chris Christie. Walker, governor of Wisconsin, pulls about even with “establishment” frontrunner Jeb Bush and scores a tie with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz in the Monmouth University Poll released Monday. Christie pulled just 5% support in the poll, compared to 13% for Bush, former governor of Florida, and 11% each for Walker and...

The movie Office Space is a classic for good reason: We've all had a job we hated so much we wanted to take the printer out to an open field and smash it with a baseball bat. Sometimes you’re stuck because you’re waiting for your end-of-year bonus, need health insurance, or simply want your vacation days for an upcoming trip. Even if you’re in the right place, we all go through periods of disenchantment. In the meantime, here are some dos and don'ts of surviving the daily misery of a job that sucks.

Sam Ro4-5-2015 Since the beginning of the year, the pace of growth in numerous US economic indicators deteriorated significantly, so much so that many of these metrics even fell short of economists' expectations. Weirdly, the pace of jobs growth had been resilient even amid unexpected plunges in key measures like retail sales and durable goods orders, reports which reflected weakness in both consumers and businesses. However, this weirdness has begun to work itself out. On Friday, we learned the US economy added just 126,000 jobs in March, missing expectations for 245,000 new jobs. You have to go all the way...

The March monthly jobs report released on Friday actually shares two striking similarities with Easter (hint: jellybeans are not one of them). One similarity is that, in each case, our attention is often focused on the wrong things. The labor market headlines, as usual, are focused on job growth and the unemployment rate. Employers added just 126,000 jobs in March, which, together with a reduction of 69,000 in the job creation estimates for January and February, suggests that the pace of recovery is slower than previously thought. Nevertheless, with unemployment rate steady at 5.5 percent — just fractions of a...

The Robopocalypse for workers may be inevitable. In this vision of the future, super-smart machines will best humans in pretty much every task. A few of us will own the machines, a few will work a bit — perhaps providing "Made by Man" artisanal goods — while the rest will live off a government-provided income. Silicon-based superintelligence and robots will dramatically alter labor markets — to name but one example, the most common job in most U.S. states probably will no longer be truck driver. But what about right now? If you're unemployed or working part-time instead of full-time, or...

For over three years the Obama administration and their media minions have sounded like a broken record by touting this magical economic recovery. After all, how else could the unemployment rate have fallen to 5.5%? I hate to let logic and empirical truth interfere, but please allow me to introduce subtraction - addition’s tricky friend! Today the Labor Department confirmed there are a RECORD 93 million Americans out of the workforce, a RECORD 12 million African Americans out of the workforce and a RECORD 56 million women out of the workforce. In essence, since 2008, a record 13 million people...

It is too early to say whether this morning’s seriously disappointing jobs report — 126,000 jobs added in March, only about half of what was expected — is the end of the run of strong jobs growth we saw for most of 2014. (Some called it the Obama boom; I prefer to think of it as the Mitch-McConnell-is-almost-majority-leader boomlet.) But it’s not a good sign, combined with the fact that January and February’s numbers were revised down noticeably, which is sometimes seen as evidence of deeper trends. Growth in the first three months of the year has now averaged 197,000...

U.S. employers added 126,000 jobs in March as the unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.5 percent, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists polled by Thomson Reuters had expected net job growth of 250,000 last month. February was revised down from 295,000 to 264,000. The drop in March is under the average 269,000 jobs added over the previous 12 months. Job creation jumped in February despite harsh winter weather, and the U.S. has added at least 200,000 jobs per month for 12 consecutive months, a feat not seen in 20 years. However, the sharp gains in job creation in recent months...

- South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley considers the bid to unionize workers at Boeing Co's North Charleston plant a threat to one of her state's corporate crown jewels, and she is turning to radio, speeches and social media to denounce the campaign. "We don't need their bully middleman tactics between our associates and their employer," she wrote on Twitter last month. It was a message in keeping with Haley's previous declarations that she is a "union buster" who wears high heels to kick out organized labor "thugs" seeking to gain a foothold in the state. The April 22 union vote...

Friday, the Labor Department is expected to report the economy added 247,000 jobs in March down from 295,000 in February and 324,000 during the fourth quarter. Wages, for all but the most skilled professionals, continue to advance only slowly, and going forward good paying jobs and pay raises will likely be even scarcer for struggling middle and working class Americans. The headline unemployment rate is down to 5.5 percent, from the recession high of 10, largely because fewer adults are participating in the labor force—for example, the 7 million men ages 25 to 55 that neither have a job nor...

The recent spate of softening economic indicators continues today with the ADP employment report for March. Private-sector job growth came to 189,000, the lowest result in more than a year, and the manufacturing sector dropped for the first time in 14 months:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Private sector employment increased by 189,000 jobs from February to March according to the March ADP National Employment Report®. …Payrolls for businesses with 49 or fewer employees increased by 108,000 jobs in March, up from 103,000 in February. Employment among companies with 50-499 employees increased by 62,000 jobs, up from 57,000 the...

The great conundrum of the U.S. economy today is that we have record numbers of working age people out of the labor ‎force at the same time we have businesses desperately trying to find workers. As an example, the American Transportation Research Institute estimates there are 30,000 – 35,000 trucker jobs that could be filled tomorrow if workers would take these jobs–a shortage that could rise to 240,000 by 2022. While the jobs market overall remains weak, demand is high for in certain sectors. For skilled and reliable mechanics, welders, engineers, electricians, plumbers, computer technicians, and nurses, jobs are plentiful;...

A plan to salvage RadioShack Corp’s RSHCQ.PK business by co-branding most of its 1,740 surviving stores with cellular phone provider Sprint Corp (S.N) earned U.S. bankruptcy court approval on Tuesday, ending four days of contested court hearings. The stores are what survived of more than 4,000 outlets after RadioShack went bankrupt in February. Founded in 1921, the chain was a go-to retailer for electronics before becoming increasingly irrelevant in the digital age. Judge Brendan Shannon, in Delaware bankruptcy court, approved a sale of the stores to the Standard General hedge fund, which plans to keep most of them open under...

It highlights the huge gap between Obama’s promise that his progressive, big-government economic policies would jump-start the economy, and the hard reality of America’s complex society and economy. The failure of Obama-economics was highlighted March 28, when the federal government admitted that the economy grew only 2.2 percent in 2014. ... Since 2009, the U.S. population has grown from 305 million to 321 million, including 11 million illegals. ... Even as he doubles down on his high-regulation, high-immigration policies, Obama insists that his top priority is increasing wages. ... But he’s continuing to rapidly add immigrants to the nation’s flooded...