Free Republic

President Trump is proud of the 3.9% unemployment rate, the lowest since 2000. But it’s not as great as it sounds. Employers added 164,000 jobs in April, which was lower than forecasts but still okay. Employers have created an average of 200,000 new jobs each month so far in 2018, which is a strong pace of job growth. But the unemployment rate, which fell from 4.1% to 3.9%, is a puzzlement. There were fewer people looking for jobs in April, which means fewer people counted as unemployed. When unemployment falls because people get jobs, that’s good. But when unemployment falls...

CAMEROTA: “The breaking news that we just had moments ago were the new job numbers, the lowest in anybody’s memory, 3.9 percent unemployment rate. It’s been 15 months of Donald Trump’s presidency. Do you give him credit for that?” JARRETT: “Look, I think we have to look at it over a longer horizon than that. If you think about what the economy was like when President Obama took office, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. Under his watch the unemployment rate dropped in half and it’s encouraging to see that we’re continuing to make progress. We want to see...

While typical entry-level jobs today pay around $40,000 to $50,000 annually, if you choose the right career route, you could be starting your career off making around six figures right off the bat. Of course, that depends on your job. Unsurprisingly, if you’re in technology, you’re in luck. A recent study by Comparably that analyzed nearly 20,000 anonymous employee salary records from companies big and small, public and private, uncovered the top six entry-level jobs that have average annual salaries of $90,000 or more. One of the highest paying jobs for people just stepping into the workforce is that of...

Governor Bill Haslam announced today that the global asset management firm AllianceBernstein will relocate its headquarters to Nashville. They are currently based in New York. With its relocation, AllianceBernstein will bring 1,050 high-quality jobs to Middle Tennessee and invest more than $70 million to establish the headquarters. “Tennessee is home to many world-renowned brands and we’re extremely proud to welcome AllianceBernstein, a global financial leader, to Nashville,” Haslam said. “Tennessee’s pro-growth policies continue to attract international companies to our state, providing fantastic job opportunities for our citizens. AllianceBernstein’s decision to bring 1,050 corporate office jobs to Nashville is an incredible...

What would it take to get you to work on the railroad? A little extra cash? How about a sign-on bonus of up to $25,000? That's what two major railroad companies are offering in an effort to recruit more workers in what The Wall Street Journal called "a historically tight labor market." The Journal said BNSF Railway, based in Fort Worth, Texas, and Union Pacific Corp. in Omaha, Nebraska, are filling jobs as the demand rises to ship more products across the western side of the country....

NORTH KINGSTOWN, R.I. (WPRI) -- Rhode Island officials on Thursday unveiled plans to expand Electric Boat's facility at Quonset Business Park, which would create 600 construction jobs in the short term and pave the way for the submarine manufacturer to hire 1,300 additional workers over the next decade. Flanked by a number of current Electric Boat employees, Gov. Gina Raimondo announced at least $14 million in state tax money will be used to improve and modernize the industrial park, which was included in her budget for the upcoming fiscal year.....

U.S. employers hired more people in April than last year, according to the LinkedIn Workforce Report, a monthly analysis of employment trends. Hiring across the U.S. was 19.8 percent higher last month than a year earlier, the LinkedIn data showed. Compared with March, the seasonally adjusted hiring figure was 2.1 percent higher....

President Donald Trump’s enforcement of immigration laws has delivered hundreds of jobs at higher wages to sidelined African Americans in Chicago after a Swiss-owned bakery was penalized for employing roughly 800 illegals. The good news was admitted in a Chicago Sun-Times article: Ed French, owner of Elgin-based Metro Staff Inc., says his company became the main provider of [replacement] workers for the bakery and that about 80 percent of them are black. According to French … wages [are] up by about 25 cents an hour, to just above minimum wage. He says everyone hired through his company is permitted to...

Progressive senators are rushing to align themselves with an idea everyone knows is bad policy. Within the last month, three Democratic senators have announced their support for a federal “jobs guarantee” program. In reverse chronological order, they were Bernie Sanders, Cory Booker, and Kirsten Gillibrand. One by one, the rising stars of the Democratic party are all trying to position themselves as Bernie-adjacent: first, single-payer; then, free college; now, the jobs guarantee. Such policies were once considered too radical for anyone other than independent Vermont socialists, but ambitious Democrats sense a trend and are racing to get ahead of it.Sanders,...

Vice President Mike Pence joined Gov. Eric Holcomb and officials from tech firm Infosys for a major high-tech jobs announcement Thursday. Infosys, a global leader in consulting, technology and next-generation services, announced it will establish its U.S. Education Center in Indianapolis to train American workers and arm them with skills for the digital future. The company also announced that it has expanded its hiring plans for Indiana from 2,000 to 3,000 new jobs by the end of 2023. Holcomb described the jobs as high-paying and said they would be in the technology field. Infosys will provide an initial investment of...

<p>Georgia Power says completion of the two new nuclear units being built in Waynesboro faces skilled labor shortages, despite the project being ahead of its revised schedule.</p> <p>A report filed by the company to the Georgia Public Service Commission ahead of Vogtle construction progress hearings next month identified difficulties in meeting craft labor requirements at the plant as one challenge that could hamper efforts to meet its completion forecast of 2021 and 2022.</p>

Fourteen states have set new records for low unemployment rates in the last year, nearly a decade after the recession put millions of Americans out of work. The states hitting new unemployment lows run the ideological gamut, from conservative Texas to liberal California, suggesting a recovery stronger than any particular political persuasion. In March, eight states saw new record lows, including Hawaii (2.1 percent), Idaho (2.9 percent), Kentucky (4 percent ), Maine (2.7 percent), Mississippi (4.5 percent), Oregon (4.1 percent) and Wisconsin (2.9 percent). California also set a new record last month. The Golden State’s unemployment rate stands at 4.1...

It takes a lot of courage for a president to target almost a quarter of the federal budget for reform in an election year. But this is exactly what President Trump is doing with his executive order, "Reducing Poverty in America by Promoting Opportunity and Economic Mobility." We're now spending more than $700 billion per year on low-income assistance, which is more than we are spending on our national defense. And there are plenty of reasons to believe this spending is inefficient, wasteful and counterproductive. Over the last half-century, some $22 trillion has been spent on anti-poverty programs and yet...

Tuning in this morning. Trump was in Miami yesterday. Trump met with local business leaders...Some hispanic and women. During the meeting, Trump spoke the truth about unemployment--blacks and Hispanics are benefiting Bigly from the economy. Miami media is focused like a laser beam on issues affecting minorities. Every perceived problem in either one of those demographic groups is highlighted. Today, the day after the visit, I haven't seen ONE SINGLE MEDIA outlet report or repeat the good economic news for minorities. Granted, it is so early I haven't had time to look at the print rags. But tv "news" is...

The Maryland Transportation Authority is exploring phasing out all cash toll booths across the state. Today, tolls are collected three ways: by cash, or electronically, by either an E-ZPass transponder or by video tolling — when the state uses a license-plate photo and mails drivers their bill. Transportation officials say that the transition to all-electronic, high-speed toll collection will: save drivers time on their commute, save the state money, reduce accidents at toll plazas, and reduce CO2 emissions as less fuel is being burned, according to a national study by the University of Central Florida. Drivers in Maryland could start...

Technological progress has frequently resulted in changes in the nature of work, sometimes affecting skilled workers more and sometimes affecting unskilled workers more. But whichever categories of worker were affected, such changes have almost universally been to the benefit of workers of all skill levels. Let’s consider two or three professions of the past.Take the “tanner.” Before technology transformed the nature of such work, Wikipedia tells us that tanning “was considered a noxious or ‘odoriferous trade’ and relegated to the outskirts of town, amongst the poor… The ancient tanner might use his bare feet to knead the skins in dung...

Recent national economic reports point to a robust economic recovery. Employment is steadily increasing, and unemployment has fallen to a 17 year low. But obscured by the national averages are 52 million Americans still living in distressed communities, areas where poverty rates, unemployment, income, and business growth are far below the national averages. This economic recovery has been unusual with its geographic concentration. Research by the Economic Innovation Group shows that just 73 out of 3,000 counties produced more than half the job growth in the first five years after the recession. A mere five metro areas were responsible for...

U.S. employers added a modest 103,000 jobs in March after several months of bigger gains, though the government's jobs report suggests the labor market remains healthy. The Labor Department says the unemployment rate remained 4.1 percent, a 17-year low, for the sixth straight month. Average hourly pay ticked up, climbing 2.7 percent compared with a year earlier.

* Private companies added 241,000 positions in March as employment in construction and manufacturing surged, according to ADP and Moody's Analytics. * The report was well ahead of Wall Street estimates for 205,000 growth and marked the fifth straight month that private payroll growth topped 200,000. * Service providers added 176,000 new jobs while goods-producing industries contributed 65,000. * "The job market is rip-roaring," says Mark Zandi, Moody's Analytics' chief economist. Companies kept up the hiring pace in March, adding 241,000 positions as employment in construction and manufacturing surged, according to a report Wednesday from ADP and Moody's Analytics. Economists...

....David Hogg, has captured headlines across the country for his calls to boycott Laura Ingraham’s show... Now David Hogg is seeking reparations from one of America’s most beloved fast food chains....went after Arby’s for their advertising on Ingraham’s show. Hogg went as far as to publish the private names and emails of executives at Arby’s to pressure them into pulling their advertisements.