Free Republic

The household survey is simply insane. Do not pay any attention to it. Do not make eye contact. Just calmly walk away. It’s simply not believable that the labor market contracted so violently according to one survey, while at the same time a separate survey of business establishments showed strong payroll growth of 288,000. Consider this: The jobless rate fell because 733,000 fewer people were considered unemployed. That’s the largest one-month decline since 1949, when unemployment fell by 920,000 when two large national strikes concluded. Nothing like that happened in April.

WASHINGTON - The U.S. labor-force participation rate sank to 62.8% in April from 63.2% in March to match a 35-year low, the government reported Friday. Some 806,000 people dropped out of the labor force, according to Labor Department figures.

A majority of the new jobs created in the four years of the recovery have been in low-wage sectors, according to a new report released this week. “Deep into the recovery, job growth is still heavily concentrated in lower-wage industries,” said the National Employment Law Project, a progressive research group which has been pushing for Congress to increase the minimum wage. Lower-wage industries accounted for 22% of job losses during the recession but 44% of employment growth over the past four years.

The number of people filing for state unemployment benefits rose for the second straight week, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The number of initial claims in the week ending April 26 rose 14,000 to 344,000, which is the highest level since the end of February. The gain came as a surprise, as the consensus forecast of Wall Street economists was for claims to fall to 320,000.

Sony Corp slashed its operating profit estimate by nearly 70 percent for the financial year ended March 31, saying it expects its exit from PCs to add nearly $300 million in extra costs as it struggles to stem losses on electronics. The Japanese consumer electronics giant on Thursday cut its operating profit forecast....

The U.S. economy stalled in the first three months of 2014, but don't panic yet as it's probably just the winter weather effect. Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic activity, grew at a 0.1% annual pace in the first quarter, the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Wednesday. That's brutally slow, even by sluggish post-recession standards. Since the Great Recession ended in June 2009, the economy has been growing at a rate of about 2% to 3% per year.

Senate Republicans on Wednesday blocked one of President Barack Obama's top legislative priorities, a bill to raise the federal minimum wage for the first time in five years. On a nearly party-line vote of 54-42, supporters fell short of the 60 votes that would have been needed to end a procedural roadblock against the legislation in the Democratic-led Senate. Just one Republican, Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, joined Democrats.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday voted unanimously to reduce its bond-buying stimulus program for the fourth straight meeting, to $45 billion a month from $55 billion. The central bank now thinks the economy is strong enough to do without the stimulus and the Fed aims to end the bond-buying program by late 2014, barring any sudden deterioration in growth.

Growth in the U.S. economy slowed to a miserly 0.1% annual pace in the first quarter from 2.6% at the end of 2013, a bout of weakness spurred by one of the worst winters in years. Consumer spending, the main driver of the U.S. economy, actually rose 3% after a strong 3.3% gain in the fourth quarter, but the increase was driven mostly by higher outlays on utilities and health care, according to preliminary data released by the Commerce Department on Wednesday. Yet business investment on equipment, another key economic cog, fell 5.5% to mark the biggest drop in almost...

...the Obama administration Tuesday opened the door for states to collect tolls on interstate highways to raise revenue for roadway repairs. The proposal, contained in a four-year, $302 billion White House transportation bill, would reverse a long-standing federal prohibition on most interstate tolling.

An audit released this month on Oregon’s dismal track record shifting people off of welfare and into jobs offers a detailed look at the effects of the recession. The audit from the Oregon Secretary of State's Office includes maps and charts that illustrate the downturn’s toll, including a sharp rise in welfare recipients and a reduction in state services. Data show bad news on every front for many Oregonians: Unemployment spiked from 2007-09 and remains above the national rate. And most of the jobs lost in 2008-12 were middle-wage – the kind that keep families off of welfare. The jobs...

Brian Alunan has nothing to show for the 150 applications he has submitted to Sacramento area employers over the last few months. No bites, no interviews, no job. Alunan is 29, and lives with his parents. His work history is spotty. His unemployment benefits have ended. The bank is about to take his car. If every generation is supposed to be better off financially than the one that proceeded it, Sacramento “millennials” have a lot of catching up to do. Several experts said the economy is the primary culprit. Many millennials graduated from high school or college during the Great...

...Charlotte’s father, Ben Bell, has been looking for a policy job for more than two years and recently has been trying to get a job with the Obama administration. He worked on the Obama campaign in 2012....

President Barack Obama grabbed dinner at one of the world's most exclusive restaurants while visiting Tokyo on Wednesday. Sukiyabashi Jiro has no set menu and meals typically last 15 to 20 minutes - but 20 pieces of sushi will set you back 30,000 Japanese yen (about $300). And that's if you're lucky enough to land one of only ten seats in the cozy basement venue.

The number of Californians 50 to 64 who live in their parents' homes has surged in recent years, reflecting the grim economic aftermath of the Great Recession. Debbie Rohr lives with her husband and twin teenage sons in a well-tended three-bedroom home in Salinas. The ranch-style house has a spacious kitchen that looks out on a yard filled with rosebushes. It's a modest but comfortable house, the type that Rohr, 52, pictured for herself at this stage of life. She just never imagined that it would be her childhood home, a return to a bedroom where she once hung posters...

Have you ever wondered why the Obama Administration’s plans for improving the U.S. economy always seem to fall flat? It just might have something to do with the fact that the Obama Administration has been working with someone who doesn’t like capitalism. According to an article on France24.com, a well known economist who isn’t fond of capitalism, but promotes Socialism, has been working with the Democrats and the Obama Administration “for a long time”: In his latest book, French economist Thomas Piketty warns that modern-day capitalism leads to unsustainable levels of inequality. While he is often linked to France’s Socialist...

The One Word Democrats May Not Utter During the Campaign Posted By Rick Moran On April 19, 2014 @ 11:26 am In Politics | And it’s not “Obamacare.”As important as Obamacare is to the Republicans in the midterm elections, the economy still tops everyone’s list as the number one issue facing the country.Some Democratic political consultants are advising candidates to avoid using the term “recovery” when describing the economy — for obvious reasons. This Fox News poll from January shows that 74% of Americans still think we’re in a recession. Any Democrat uttering the word “recovery” is likely to...

How does a city strike a balance between the needs of the homeless and the needs of those around them? Those questions will be put to the Fort Lauderdale City Commission as they consider two provisions on the agenda at Tuesday’s commission meeting. At the beginning of this year, the Fort Lauderdale City commission sat down to discuss how the city could address the issue of homelessness better. Out of that came ideas about ways to protect non-homeless residents’ quality of life. One of the ordinances up for consideration would prevent homeless people from urinating or defecating in public. The...

According to stunning new numbers just released by the federal government, nine of the top ten most commonly held jobs in the United States pay an average wage of less than $35,000 a year. When you break that down, that means that most of these workers are making less than $3,000 a month before taxes. And once you consider how we are being taxed into oblivion, things become even more frightening. Can you pay a mortgage and support a family on just a couple grand a month? Of course not. In the old days, a single income would enable a...

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, but the underlying trend continued to point to some strength in the labor market. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 16,000 to a seasonally adjusted 326,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Economists had forecast first-time filings for jobless aid rising to 317,000 in the week ended March 29.