Free Republic

(CNSNews.com) - American women participated in the nation’s labor force in September at a rate that matched the lowest level in 24 years, according to data released today by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. At the same time, the number of women actually holding jobs declined by 154,000 from August to September. Because the number of women participating in the labor force declined in September, the drop in the number of women who were actually employed did not cause an increase in the unemployment rate for women. In fact, even though 154,000 fewer women worked in August than September, the...

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 148,000 in September, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 7.2 percent. The bad news? Economists were predicting 180,000 increase in employment. Even worse, the increase in PRIVATE payrolls was only 126,000. empdata102213 U6 unemployment fell to 13.6% while labor force participation remained the same. u6lfp102213 Where were the jobs created? Transportation and Warehousing: + 23K Government: +22K Retail Trade: +21K Temp Help: +20K NOT in labor force increased by 136,000. So, the labor force dropouts exceed private jobs created. Charming. These numbers are not...

AN UNSUSTAINABLE SYSTEM The chart will shake future pensioners If you trust your retirement to politicians, poor end up feeling cheated. JUAN RAMÓN RALLO 16/10/2013 This is a chart that should make us all reflect on pensions. Displays the expected development of the working population and the number of pensioners. Although it is a terrifying figure, is based on two assumptions fed optimistic: the first is that in Spain work 70% of the population old enough, rather than just get in full bubble, the second is that the number of pension pay matches that of people over 67 years, which...

Under the Affordable Care Act, someone making less than 138 percent of the poverty line qualifies for Medicaid, and someone between 138 and 400 percent of the poverty line is qualified to receive a federal tax subsidy for health insurance bought on a government exchange. But here is the problem: premiums will rise for millions of Americans because of requirements that policies provide certain benefits that they didn’t offer before. This means plenty of people will now have a pricier plan, and no way to defray the cost. My colleague Chuck Blahous sends me this piece from SFGate that gives...

According to The Federal Reserve G.19 Report for August, consumer debt topped $3 trillion! Of course, Federal government debt has topped $16 trillion, over 5 times the amount of consumer debt. Note that pickup in Federal debt growth compared to consumer debt growth after Q2 2008 (red box). feddebtconsumer Here is a chart of revolving consumer credit versus non-revolving credit. Non-revolving debt (e.g., auto loans) have effectively replaced revolving debt. revnonrev Business loans have finally grown past the prior peak in 2008. frbusloasn On the government side, current expenditures (purple line) continue to grow, but the rate of growth flattened...

spoke at the American Action Forum / Progressive Policy Institute conference “From Recovery to Reform: Building a Sustainable Housing Finance System.” It was a great line-up including Stan Humphries from Zillow, Mark Zandi from Moody’s Analytics, Jim Millsteen, Mark Calabria from Cato and former Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty. I did mention that any housing reform should consider the continuing decline in labor force participation and declining real median household income, signals that renting may be the preferred option for many and perhaps we should focus on multifamily markets rather than just single-family detached housing finance. lfpmedrealinc An example of my...

Two Republican House lawmakers asked the Labor Department to provide "all legal analyses" it has done on a proposed Obamacare "fix" sought by Big Labor. The lawmakers think the administration is secretly working on a such a fix but trying to keep it hidden from the public. In a letter Wednesday to Labor Secretary Thomas Perez, House Education and the Workforce Committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., and Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., said their request was prompted by the mysterious disappearance of a posting on the Office of Management and Budget's website saying it had received DOL's proposed rule on the...

There can be no debate about the nation’s anemic economic recovery and its effect on the working poor. While the stock market is soaring again, jobs and wages continue to lag. Democratic leaders and the governor have rightly agreed to raise California’s minimum wage significantly – to $10 over two years. It would increase to $9 on July 1, 2014, and to $10 on Jan. 1, 2016. In an economy with a record-high income gap (the top 10 percent of earners took more than half of the nation’s total income last year), such an adjustment is justified and long overdue....

...Laborers (LIUNA) President Terry O'Sullivan, who endorsed the resolution, told the convention delegates that without changes to the way the ACA is implemented, there are likely to be "unintended consequences" that will hurt workers' health care coverage. AFT Secretary-Treasurer Lorretta Johnson said many AFT members, including para-professionals, adjunct college professors, nurses and public employees, have had their hours cut to under the 30-hour week threshold they must work before ACA requires employers to provide affordable, comprehensive health care coverage or pay a penalty. Trumka did tell the delegates that "the labor movement is engaged in ongoing dialogue with a number...

On the first Friday of every month, I go through the jobs report and note the grossly distorted statistics. For example, please see BLS in Wonderland written Friday, September 6  Every month I conclude with a couple paragraphs like these:  Grossly Distorted Statistics Were it not for people dropping out of the labor force, the unemployment rate would be over 9%. In addition, there are 7,911,000 people who are working part-time but want full-time work. Digging under the surface, much of the drop in the unemployment rate over the past two years is nothing but a statistical mirage coupled with a massive increase...

Friday’s jobs report was a disappointment with, among other things, labor force participation falling to 63.2%. As I noted on Friday, labor force participation is falling generally with M2 Money Velocity. lfpm2v But here is real clinker that makes the jobs report even worse. Countries like Australia, Germany and The UK are seeing either RISING or stable labor force participation. Canada is seeing a decline in their labor force participation rate, but not as bad as the US rate. lfpcount Since each of these countries are “western” with similar demographics, we can chuck the aging population meme out the window....

THE federal Liberal-National coalition is likely to govern with a majority of at least 30 seats after a swing of just over three per cent against Labor. The ALP has become the first two-term federal government to be thrown out of office since Gough Whitlam's regime in 1975. Tony Abbott's coalition is on track to pick up 90 seats, with Labor holding 57, in the 150-seat parliament, but it won't have a majority in the Senate.

We have had Live Threads here at Freerepublic for the count for the last three Australian Federal elections - in 2004 which ended in conservative victory, then again in 2007 which ended in defeat for the conservatives and a Labor government, and then again in 2010 which gave us a hung Parliament, where Labor continued governing with the support of the Greens and independents. This is the live thread for 2013 - polls close and the count begins in about 10 minutes. Polls and exit polls indicate a victory for the conservative coalition under Tony Abbott is highly likely. A...

Is the debate about giving citizenships to millions of illegal immigrants becoming irrelevant as technology begins to replace the need for today’s human labor required in planting and picking field crops?

"De Soto, Holder of Twenty-nine World Records, builds a new aero-dynamic car at popular prices ... This year De Soto does the unexpected again ... introduces not one new car ... but two! ... We can't describe the new Airflow model. You will have to see it yourself to know how truly beautiful it is." Go to a public library or a used-books-and-periodicals store sometime, select at random an American magazine from decades ago, flip through the pages at your leisure. What may strike you is not the now-forgotten news stories, but the energy and effort expended, the enthusiasm displayed,...

Unions are frustrated the Obama administration hasn’t responded to their calls for changes to ObamaCare. Labor has watched with growing annoyance as the White House has backed ObamaCare changes in response to concerns from business groups, religious organizations and even lawmakers and their staffs. They say they don’t understand why their concerns so far have fallen of deaf ears. “We are disappointed that the non-profit health plans offered by unions have not been given the same consideration as the Catholic Church, big business and Capitol Hill staffers,” Unite Here President D. Taylor told The Hill. It's an issue that Obama...

Today, America celebrates the 100 anniversary of the first federal Labor Day holiday. In honor of the day, and in honor of the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech, Richard Trumka takes the opportunity to address the workers of America: “I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for solidarity in the history of our nation.  Five score years ago a great American in whose symbolic shadow we stand today signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beckoning light of hope...

LABOR won power in 2007 on a Ruddslide, but looks like losing power in 2013 in a Ruddbath. The popularity of Kevin Rudd, which won Labor a swathe of seats in Queensland, is turning into voter retribution that has the ALP facing a worse result on Saturday than Paul Keating's loss to John Howard in 1996. The "unelectable" Tony Abbott is now preferred prime minister, and the great campaigning "comeback kid" Prime Minister is more unpopular than he ever has been. With a primary vote of just 33 per cent in the last week of the election campaign, the legitimate...

America's Truck Driver ShortageBy Kate O'ConnellThe Innovation Trail's Kate O'Connell talks to truckers, industry reps, and analysts about America's trucker shortage. America’s trucking industry’s been experiencing a chronic shortage of drivers for at least 20 years. Conservative estimates put the number of vacancies upward of 20,000, and some say it goes into the hundreds of thousands. But, there are mixed views on the causes and solutions for this challenge to the industry. Kevin Dugan has a college degree in heating and air conditioning, but after graduating he had a similar experience to many young grads. Employers were reluctant to...

NEW YORK (MainStreet) — Should the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) compel employers to provide union organizers with the phone numbers and email addresses of employees they want to solicit for votes for a union?...