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Fewer Americans filed first time applications for unemployment benefits last week, as the labor market appears to be holding up at a stronger level than expected. New applications for state unemployment benefits fell 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 214,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. This was the fourth consecutive weekly decline, largely reversing the climb in claims in early December. The higher numbers in the first weeks of December led some to believe the labor market was cooling. Economists had expected claims to come in at 219,000.

This admission is long overdue, but it’s less about the New York Times than on the media in general. For several years, media outlets claimed that we had reached peak employment in the latter half of Barack Obama’s presidency despite ample evidence of a massive overhang of discouraged workers weighing down the job markets. When Donald Trump ran on an agenda of deregulation and tax incentives to spark new hiring and drive wages upward, only a handful of media outlets managed to avoid outright scoffing at the very idea that we had any room to expand.Today, NYT’s Neil Irwin...

ROCK HILL, S.C. — A generational divide among black voters is persisting in the Democratic primary — between the two old white men. Joe Biden has amassed a staggering lead among older African Americans, commanding nearly two-thirds support of black voters 65 and older in the most recent Morning Consult poll. Bernie Sanders is the favorite of black millennials, though his margin with that group is much smaller. Among all black voters, Biden is leading Sanders, 41 percent to 20 percent. Biden and Sanders have maintained their edges even as other candidates — including two African American senators, Kamala Harris...

Despite January’s blowout jobs number of 304,000, leading economic indicators indicate moderate gains in the coming months - and economists said a downward revision was even likely for January, given the impact of the partial government shutdown. “The labor story continues to be a very good one for the economy and suggests that this imminent fear of a recession is overdone,” said Darrell Cronk, president of the Wells Fargo Investment Institute. “I do expect there will be revisions in January as the statistical noise about how federal workers are counted will be resolved,” said Andrew Chamberlain, chief economist at Glassdoor.com....

The unemployment rate for African-Americans fell to a 17-year low in September, and the rates for all other major racial and ethnic groups also dropped.

Infrastructure spending is the key to increasing economic growth, because it will give Americans better-paying jobs, a prominent investment banker and economist said. "The private sector has done all it reasonably can, yet the U.S. labor market remains a shadow of its former self. It is time to rebuild America," Daniel Alpert, a founding managing partner of Westwood Capital, said Monday in a presentation titled "The Case for Aggressive Fiscal Spending on Infrastructure in 2017."(continued)

U.S. companies added a whopping 298,000 new jobs in February, beating economists' expectations by more than 100,000. The report from ADP, a global human resources and payroll firm, provides the first hard economic numbers from Donald Trump's first full month as president. Trump tweeted a self-congratulatory note, calling the number 'much more than expected!' Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4293622/Trump-s-month-brings-massive-employment-boom.html#ixzz4alaO42P3 Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

Samsung is planning to invest around $300 million in expanding U.S. production facilities after President Donald Trump's rhetoric around American jobs, according to the Wall Street Journal Wednesday, citing sources. The company will also shift some production of oven ranges to the U.S. from Mexico, the Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter. It could create around 500 jobs, the people added. Talks are ongoing and no final decisions have been made, with a start date for oven-range production still undetermined, the people told the Journal. CNBC has reached out to Samsung for comment....

General Motors Plans at Least $1 Billion in Fresh U.S. Investment: Auto maker's move is expected to create more than 1,000 new jobs General Motors Co. this week will announce plans to invest at least $1 billion across several U.S. factories, two people familiar with the plan said, a move aimed at underlining its commitment to U.S. manufacturing jobs in the wake of President-elect Donald Trump's criticism of the auto maker's imports from Mexico. GM's announcement could come as early as Tuesday, the people briefed on the plan said. The company will cite a number... RELATED VIDEO General Motors says...

Walmart has announced that it will invest $6.8 billion in the United States and create 10,000 more jobs for Americans in stores and e-commerce, a strong response to the victory of President-elect Donald Trump. The investment will create 59 new or relocated Walmart and Sam’s Club stores throughout the country which will in return create an estimated 24,000 construction jobs, the company said in a statement. “With a presence in thousands of communities and a vast supplier network, we know we play an important role in supporting and creating American jobs,” said Dan Bartlett, Walmart executive vice president for corporate...

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in Trump Tower, New York, January 11, 2017. Trump's plans for rebooting the economy 15 Hours Ago | 03:22 Donald Trump wasn't asked much about the economy during his press conference on Wednesday, but when he was, the president-elect managed a rather colossal error. Trump said that there "are 96 million wanting a job and they can't get (one). You know that story. The real number. That's the real number." It is unfortunately very far from the real number. There are in fact 96 million Americans age 16 and older who are...

Chalk up another win for the president-elect? Toyota is set to make a $10 billion capital investment in the U.S. over the next five years, Toyota Motor North America chief executive Jim Lentz said during an interview at the Detroit auto show, Reuters reported.

It's finally happening - Fiat Chrysler just announced plans to invest $1BILLION in Michigan and Ohio plants, adding 2000 jobs. This after Ford said last week that it will expand in Michigan and U.S. instead of building a BILLION dollar plant in Mexico. Thank you Ford & Fiat C!

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Stanley Black & Decker is opening a new $35 million manufacturing plant in the United States to help it rebuild, and perhaps more importantly "re-Americanize," the Craftsman tool brand it just bought from Sears Holdings. While the extra capacity should help get a once-iconic $2 billion a year line back on its feet, the move also potentially offers Stanley Black & Decker another benefit: shielding it from a potential surge in economic nationalism under President-elect Donald Trump. Though Stanley Black & Decker chief executive James Loree did not mention Trump by name in his comments to Wall Street analysts and...

Ford is canceling plans to build a new plant in Mexico. It will invest $700 million in Michigan instead, creating 700 new U.S. jobs. Ford (F) CEO Mark Fields said the investment is a "vote of confidence" in the pro-business environment president-elect Donald Trump is creating. However, he stressed Ford did not do any sort of special deal with Trump. "We didn't cut a deal with Trump. We did it for our business," Fields told CNN's Poppy Harlow in an exclusive interview Tuesday. He said Ford did speak with Trump and vice-president elect Mike Pence this morning. Powered by SmartAsset.com...

Ford canceling plans for $1.6 billion plant in Mexico, investing $700 million in Michigan expansion instead