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A study commissioned by the National Black Chamber of Commerce, which represents 2.1 million black-owned businesses in the United States, found that the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Clean Power Plan would increase black poverty by 23 percent and cause the loss of 7 million jobs for black Americans by 2035. The study also found that the EPA' plan would increase Hispanic poverty by 26 percent and cause the loss of 12 million jobs for Hispanic Americans by 2035. The EPA proposed the Clean Power Plan on June 2, 2014 to cut carbon emissions from power plants. ... There was a...

President Obama's weekly remarks Hi, everybody. My top priority as President is to grow the economy and help more hardworking Americans get ahead. And after the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes, our businesses have now created 12.6 million new jobs over the past 63 months.

WASHINGTON - All of the euphoric stories you've read lately about the surging job market should include one of these cautionary notes: This report omits all negative data, or "read down to the very bottom where we've buried the bad stuff." Consider the Washington Post's front page headline last week that gushingly characterized the Labor Department's minimal monthly employment numbers as a "jobs boom." The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the economy produced 280,000 new jobs in May. But this isn't anywhere near a hiring boom, especially in a country of nearly 160 million workers, many of whom still...

American businesses have a lot of "we're hiring" signs up. There were 5.4 million job openings in the U.S. in April -- the highest number of openings in 15 years. It is a record high since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking monthly job openings in December 2000. The surge in job openings this spring was even better than expected, according Peter Boockvar, chief market analyst at the Lindsey Group. It's another sign that the economy appears to be rebounding and the winter slowdown was just a blip. Who's hiring? Over the past year, health care, business services and...

During the Great Recession, involuntary part-time employment surged. So, now that the economy is recovering, shouldn't involuntary employment return to prerecession levels? Perhaps not, according to new research from the San Francisco Fed. Changes in the U.S. economy's industrial composition toward services combined with shifting demographics and changes in labor costs appear to have caused a permanent increase in the percentage of people forced to accept involuntary part-time employment.

Many political debates in the upcoming presidential race will play out this way: The Democrat will offer "X for all," and the Republican will respond, "Do you have any idea how much that's going to cost?" That's the way nearly all political debates are engaged -- usually to the disadvantage of Republicans (and the public fisc). That's why I wished, while attending a panel on higher education reform sponsored jointly by the Ethics and Public Policy Center and The Bradley Foundation, that every Republican candidate in America had been listening. The Democrats have a tried-and-true formula (which is actually false,...

Payroll Stats Become Even More ImplausibleSince Q1 GDP was revised lower by almost 1% that meant estimates of productivity were going to be even more out of alignment than they were at the first release. Of course, in a less massaged environment productivity might have preserved some sense if there was less rigidity from the BLS on the employment side. In other words, when “output” estimates were reduced (and they were, by more than GDP) it would make sense that everything would be revised downward in a more cohesive process. Instead, output was reduced significantly, by 1.4%, while total hours...

One of the defining features of jobs "recovery" and the main reason why wage growth has been so far below the Fed's expectations for years it has prevented wage inflation from appearing despite years of QE, is that the quality of jobs added month after month has disappointing. May was no difference.Yes, the headline print of 280K job additions was great, but a quick look at how the BLS got there shows that nothing has changed because four of the five main job additions were, as usual for the lowest paid jobs. Here is the breakdown: Education and Health...

<p>Despite 6-1/2 years of horrid governance and dozens of acknowledged scandals, several of which a few of the credible remaining outposts of liberal thought have actually agreed are scandals, David Brooks, the New York Times's resident fake conservative, asserted on Friday's PBS NewsHour, as if it's an indisputable fact, that "President Obama has run an amazingly scandal-free administration, not only he himself, but the people around him."</p>

“Wall Street is back,” says the New York Times, and the economic cost is high. The excessive financialization of the US economy reduces the GDP by 2% every year, according to a new study by International Monetary Fund. That’s a massive drag on the economy–some $320 billion per year. Wall Street has thus become, not just a moral problem with rampant illegality and outlandish compensation of executives and traders: Wall Street is a macro-economic problem of the first order.

Deep into the seventh year of his tenure, Barack Obama is thinking about his post-presidential legacy. We know this because he’s telling us so. In an interview this week with The Atlantic about the potential deal with Iran regarding its nuclear program, the president sought to use the fact of his relative youth and his consciousness about how history might judge him to his advantage: “Look, 20 years from now, I’m still going to be around, God willing. If Iran has a nuclear weapon, it’s my name on this. I think it’s fair to say that in addition to our...

On May 18, the U.S. average retail price for gasoline was $2.74 per gallon ($/gal), or 92¢ per gallon (¢/gal) lower than at the same time last year. This is the lowest average price heading into the Memorial Day weekend—the traditional start of the summer driving season—since 2009. Lower gasoline prices reflect lower crude oil prices, with the spot price of North Sea Brent crude oil at more than $45 per barrel ($/b) lower than the same time last year, despite having increased more than $10/b since the beginning of February. Average retail prices for all regions of the country...

At a time when 8.5 million Americans still don't have jobs, some 40 percent have given up even looking. The revelation, contained in a new survey Wednesday showing how much work needs to be done yet in the U.S. labor market, comes as the labor force participation rate remains mired near 37-year lows. A tight jobs market, the skills gap between what employers want and what prospective employees have to offer, and a benefits program that, while curtailed from its recession level, still remains obliging have combined to keep workers on the sidelines, according to a Harris poll of 1,553...

Original Title; Hillary Clinton: "Grateful" For Obama's Work on Economy, But "Deck Is Still Stacked In Favor Of Those At The Top"On Monday, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton spoke to a small group of Iowans at a "house party" event in Mason City. In this part of her speech Clinton talked about domestic issues such as the economy and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The video is from a livestream captured by Bloomberg's Jennifer Epstein on Periscope. Clinton praised Obama for the "hard work" he's done on the economy, but lamented the "deck is still stacked in favor of those...

The number of jobs in manufacturing has declined by 7,231,000--or 37 percent--since employment in manufacturing peaked in the United States in 1979, according to data published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The real median household income of Americans who have completed high school--but have not attained a higher degree--also peaked in the 1970s and has declined since then. In fact, according to the Census Bureau (Tables H-13 and H-14), the real median household income of an American householder who has completed four years of high school peaked in 1973 at $56,395 in constant 2013 dollars. By 2013, it was...

Submitted by Michael Snyder via The Economic Collapse blog, If the U.S. economy really is improving, then why are big U.S. retailers permanently shutting down thousands of stores? The “retail apocalypse” that I have written about so frequently appears to be accelerating. As you will see below, major U.S. retailers have announced that they are closing more than 6,000 locations, but economic conditions in this country are still fairly stable. So if this is happening already, what are things going to look like once the next recession strikes? For a long time, I have been pointing to 2015 as a...

Rubio follows fellow Republican nomination aspirants Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, both of whom signed the pledge last week. His move could put fellow Floridian mentor-turned-rival Jeb Bush in a difficult position in the brewing 2016 presidential contest.

And so the Atlanta Fed, whose "shocking" Q1 GDP prediction Zero Hedge first laid out nearly 2 months ago, with its Q1 GDP 0.1% forecast was spot on. Moments ago the BEA reported that Q1 GDP was far worse than almost everyone had expected, and tumbled from a 2.2% annualized growth rate at the end of 2014 to just 0.2%, in a rerun of last year when it too "snowed" in the winter. This was well below the Wall Street consensus of a print above 1.0%. n other words, in the quarter in which the S&P rose to unseen highs,...

I first caught wind of this story from our good friend Fausta, and it seems like a suitably silly note to help wrap up an already strange and unusual week. We’ve got a brand spanking new, rootin’ tootin’ study, fresh off the press from a distinguished group of scientists. (And I can tell they were scientists because I checked, and most of them were wearing white lab coats.) In it, we find what we already suspected about the party that hates science, clings to their guns and their God, and disapproves of Barack Obama not because of his damaging policies,...

Tuesday night's speech from the Oval Office of the White House was written to a 9.8 grade level, said Paul J.J. Payack, president of Global Language Monitor. The Austin, Texas-based company analyzes and catalogues trends in word usage and word choice and their impact on culture.... Obama's nearly 10th-grade-level rating was the highest of any of his major speeches and well above the Grade 7.4 of his 2008 "Yes, we can" victory speech, which many consider his best effort, Payack said.