Free Republic

MADISON — Who says you can’t collect unemployment in prison? The law. But that didn’t stop hundreds of inmates from cashing in on hundreds of thousands of dollars in illegal unemployment payments, according to information obtained by Wisconsin Reporter through an open records request. There were 593 cases of “overpayments,” or jobless benefits paid in the names of Wisconsin prisoners between July 2012 and this month — to the tune of $616,248, according to state Department of Workforce Development records. Crime Pays? 593 inmates collected a total of $616,000 in unemployment benefits over the last year, according to the Department...

Amazing. The Fed and Fed Chairman Bernanke announced that Fed asset purchase reductions would requires improved jobs numbers. Then BAM! Today’s jobless claims report. From the FOMC minutes: “Many members indicated that further improvement in the outlook for the labor market would be required before it would be appropriate to slow the pace of asset purchases” Bernanke: “I think you can only conclude that highly accommodative monetary policy for the foreseeable future is what’s needed in the U.S. economy.” Bernanke: “And I guess the final thing I would say in terms of risks of course is that we have seen...

Is the full-time American job going the way of the dodo? The signs aren’t exactly heartening. Consider the jobs report released Friday. The United States added 195,000 new jobs in June, it said, including 322,000 new part-time jobs — a number that comprises only part-timers who want full-time work but can’t find it. Assuming my grade-school arithmetic skills haven’t completely eroded, that suggests that the number of full-time jobs actually declined. Critics of Obamacare have a ready explanation: The 30-hour-a-week cutoff of the now-postponed employer mandate — which requires many employers to either provide health-care coverage for employees who work...

The number of Americans applying for first-time unemployment benefits rose sharply last week to 360,000, an increase of 16,000 and much higher than the number analysts were expecting, the U.S. Labor Department said Thursday. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S expected, on average, claims for the seven days between June 30 and July 6 to fall to 340,000 below the previous week's revised figure of 344,000. By comparison, there were 363,000 first-time claims filed during the comparable week last year (seasonally adjusted). Although claims spiked, Labor Department officials and economists caution that one should not read too much into any...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week, although the level still appeared to point to healing in the nation's job market. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased by 16,000 to a seasonally adjusted 360,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. The reading was likely clouded by seasonal factors. The Labor Department can have a tough time seasonally adjusting claims in early July because many factories shut down during that period for retooling, but the scheduling for the shutdowns varies from year to year. A Labor Department analyst said there was...

With millions of families across the country still struggling to recover from the Great Recession, a deeper look at how some states fared through recessions versus less fortunate states may provide state policy makers with some ideas for how to get their citizens working again. Back in 1995, a time of relative prosperity, the average national unemployment rate was 5.6 percent, slightly higher than what most economists would consider being full employment in a healthy, growing economy. In 2011, the national unemployment rate had risen to 8.9 percent. Comparing a state’s unemployment rate for a given year with the corresponding...

The Constitution requires the president to take an oath or affirmation that says: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." Article II, Section 3 says, "He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." In his unequal and discriminatory implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), President Barack Obama is now violating both his constitutional oath of office and his constitutional duty to faithfully execute...

A friend of mine heard a story about an unemployed guy who finally accepted a new job that paid 50k less than the job he had before unemployment. The reason he took this job is that some part of the gov't. Is paying the 50k difference! So its essentially a program that props up the employment statistics while still spending massive amounts of money. The question is, does anyone know if this is true or the name of the program or agency that may be doing this?

Trying to find a job in America today can be an incredibly frustrating experience. Most of the jobs that are available seem to pay very little, and there is intense competition for just about any job that is open. But it wasn't always like this. When I was in high school, I was immediately hired when I applied for a job at McDonalds because they were so desperate for workers that they would hire just about anyone that could flip a burger. But in this economic environment, a single nationwide hiring event conducted by McDonalds resulted in a million job...

All of us have been living with Obamacare for four years. First, it was the development of the bill, then it was Nancy Pelosi telling us we had to pass the bill to know what was in it, then it was the passing of the bill on a party line vote, and now it is trying to figure out how it affects us and the people around us. Like others, we have been reading the variety of developments surrounding the bill. There is the touting of the frontloaded benefits. We have been reading about how state-by-state decisions have been made...

Paul Solman: And how about kids that are not in school, what percentage of them ages 16 to 19 are not working now? Andrew Sum: Over half. If you're a high school dropout you're talking about 30 percent working. Among high school grads who graduated from high school in the last three years -- we do a separate survey of them the fall after graduation -- 45 percent of them held a job, the lowest in the last 50 years we've been collecting this data. And to make it worse, of that 45 percent, only half of them were able...

Since January 2009, when Barack Obama was inaugurated as president, the United States has seen 54 straight months with the unemployment rate at 7.5 percent or higher, which is the longest stretch of unemployment at or above that rate since 1948, when the Bureau of Labor Statistics started calculating the national unemployment rate. Today, BLS reported that the seasonally adjusted national unemployment rate for June was 7.6 percent, the same it was in May. In December 2008, the month after Obama was first elected and the month before he was inaugurated, unemployment was 7.3 percent. In January 2009, it climbed...

IBD Editorials America's Job Recovery Is Only For Part-Timers Posted 07/05/2013 06:09 PM ET Employment: From the media to Wall Street, June's jobs report is being spun as a major positive, a sign the economy is getting back on track. Maybe the pundits should look at the actual numbers, which are abysmal. aclbfTo hear some of them, the 195,000 payroll jobs added for the month while the unemployment rate stayed at 7.6% were a big deal. One investment house called it a "very good report." Another termed it "solid." Really? Let's take a little closer look at the numbers. The...

Initial Reaction  The establishment survey showed a gain of 195,000 and that is a very respectable number. However, the household survey shows a more modest gain of 160,000 jobs. The civilian labor force rose by 177,000 thus the unemployment rate was steady at 7.6%. Digging beneath the surface, the numbers do not look so good.  326,000 Full-Time Jobs Lost Involuntary part-time jobs increased by 322,000 while voluntary part-time jobs increased by another 110,000. Thus, of the 160,000 household survey gain, 486,000 of them were part-time jobs, a loss of 326,000 full-time jobs. This caused a spike of 0.5 percentage points...

The market got more bad news that’s good news- but not good in the sense that it actually helps you, me or anyone else- when the new jobs reports came out on Friday. This "good news is bad news is good news" thing is getting tiresome. It's part of what our friend Mike Shedlock calls the Obamcare Effect.  First the barely good news. The report showed that despite the dire warnings from federal bureaucrats, politicians and K Street lobbyists, the jobs market didn’t fall apart because Republicans forced the government to spend less than it planned. “U.S. job growth accelerated...

From the media to Wall Street, June's jobs report is being spun as a major positive, a sign the economy is getting back on track. Maybe the pundits should look at the actual numbers, which are abysmal. To hear some of them, the 195,000 payroll jobs added for the month while the unemployment rate stayed at 7.6% were a big deal. One investment house called it a "very good report." Another termed it "solid." Really? Let's take a little closer look at the numbers. The total number of payroll jobs in the economy, at 135.9 million, is still 1.6% below...

The U.S. labor market may be gaining a little more steam, judging by Friday's June jobs report. Imagine how much better it might do if ObamaCare weren't encouraging employers to hire so many part-time workers. The Labor Department's survey of businesses found 195,000 net new hires in June, 202,000 in the private economy. Payrolls for April and May were also revised upward by a total of 70,000, which means the average for the last three months is about 200,000. That's up from the 182,000 monthly average over the last year. One positive development is that the number of "long-time" unemployed,...

only 47% of Americans have a full-time job and those who don't are finding it increasingly out of reach. Of the 144 million Americans employed last month, only 116 million were working full-time. Friday's report showed that 58.7% of the civilian adult population of 245 million was working last month. Only 47% of Americans, however, had a full-time job. ... In June, the number of Americans who wanted to work full-time, but were forced into part-time jobs because of the economy, jumped 352,000 to over eight million.

Happy jobs day! First, the immediate good news: The June report showed the U.S. economy added 195,000 in June, strongly beating expectations in the 150,000-165,000 range. The unemployment rate, meanwhile, was unchanged at 7.6 percent. But now for the really good news: We were quite wrong about job gains in April and May. Initial reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed a jobs gain of 149,000 in April and 175,000 in May. In the latest reports, those numbers were revised upward to 199,000 in April and 195,000 in May. That's a combined gain of 70,000 jobs from earlier reports....

So much for any doubts about a September taper: with the street expecting a 165K NFP number for June, the actual print of 195K following an upward revised May print of 195K as well, means the September flow fade is now virtually assured. The Unemployment Rate stayed at 7.6% despite expectations of a drop to 7.5%, although the real action was in the underemployment rate which exploded from 13.8% to 14.3%. From the report: Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 195,000 in June, in line with the average monthly gain of 182,000 over the prior 12 months. In June, job...