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WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits fell 19,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 326,000, the fewest since January 2008. The decline shows the job market continues to strengthen. The Labor Department said Thursday that the less volatile four-week average slid 4,500 to 345,750. The July figures are typically volatile as the government adjusts for seasonal layoffs in the auto industry. Still, the trend in weekly unemployment claims in recent months has been positive. Applications, which are a proxy for layoffs, have fallen more than 12 percent this year. That's coincided with average job growth...

Michigan’s recent increase in unemployment was caused by an uptick in the number of people looking for work. While an increased proportion of people looking for work is rarely good news, this time it is. The reversal of the state’s long-term trend of losing its workforce is a positive for the state. The labor force is the number of people in the state who are either looking for work or are employed. From 2001 to 2003, Michigan lost a substantial number of both jobs and people looking for work. The situation never recovered, despite small increases in the labor force...

Eurozone unemployment continued at record highs in June and while a first fall in the jobless numbers for more than two years offers some hope, officials and analysts were cautious on the outlook. “The figures remain horrendously high,” a European Commission official said, stressing the need to press ahead with economic reforms needed to boost employment. “Let’s be frank. There is no silver lining here … the figures are pretty much the same as the previous month.” The 17-nation eurozone jobless rate came in at 12.1 percent, unchanged from May, the Eurostat data agency said on Wednesday. …

Unemployment in the eurozone fell for the first time in over two years, according to new statistics. The new figures show that24,000 fewer Europeans were considered unemployed since May. The jobless rate in the 17-member eurozone is still high at 12.1 percent and a decrease in spending by shoppers in France Germany, and Spain will mar the promising new data. Domestic demand across Europe remains weak due to the downturn and austerity measures being taken by many nations. In the 27-member European Union, the unemployment rate is 10.9 percent, down from 11 percent in May. The jobless rate of young...

President Obama sought Wednesday to reassure Democrats nervous about the impact of his health care law and the prospects for immigration legislation, telling them "You're on the right side of history." In the first of two closed-door meetings on Capitol Hill, Obama focused on financial gains as the economy emerges from the worst downturn since the Depression. He was warned about nominating former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers as chairman of the Federal Reserve and faced questions about his health care law. Some lawmakers complained that three years after its passage, the law still baffles many Americans. Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colo.,...

In a surprising acknowledgement of the truth, the Associated Press has reported, “Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.” The damning report based on what the AP calls exclusive survey data continues with, “…the widening gap between rich and poor and loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend.” Given Barack Obama’s latest “pivot” toward the problems of unemployed Americans – which by some accounts was his 19th announced such “pivot”- the...

…How ’bout, no? Via the Washington Post: The new head of the Environmental Protection Agency told an audience at Harvard Law School on Tuesday that cutting carbon pollution will “feed the economic agenda of this country” and vowed to work with industry leaders on shaping policies aimed at curbing global warming.“Climate change will not be resolved overnight,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy told the 310-member audience. “But it will be engaged over the next three years. That I can promise you.”McCarthy made a full-throated defense of her agency’s right to address greenhouse-gas emissions and other pollutants, saying that air-quality regulations and...

President Obama has been rolling up his sleeves campaigning across the country delivering a surreal stump speech message supposedly aimed at the middle class: big government works, Obamacare is manna from heaven, the wave of recent scandals are “phony” figments of the imagination, and all economic problems are the fault of the Republicans. Conveniently, he leaves out the bankruptcy of Detroit, a city run by his own party for more than half a century. His message is so stale and unconvincing, that even The New York Times and Washington Post have noticed. Both papers, usually loyal to Obama, remarked that...

Recipients of federal disability checks often admit that they are capable of working but cannot or will not find a job, that those closest to them tell them they should be working, and that working to get off the disability rolls is not among their goals. More baffling, most have never received significant medical treatment and not seen a doctor about their condition in the last year, even though medical problems are the official reason they don't work. Those who acknowledge they're on disability because they can't find a job say they make little effort to find one, according to...

There are lots of predictions the Affordable Care Act will force employers to lay off employees, reduce hours, and cut seasonal positions. But a report released Monday from the National Bureau of Economic Research finds that up to nearly 1 million workers may voluntarily leave their jobs because of the new health care law. For empirical evidence of this, the authors point to something dramatic that happened in Tennessee back in 2005. Finances forced state officials to kick 170,000 people off the Medicaid program, which primarily serves low-income residents. “That’s the largest disenrollment in the history of Medicaid. So this...

As a result of the sequester, which went into effect in early 2013 to help cut the U.S. budget deficit, a federal program intended to lengthen the amount of time jobless residents can receive unemployment benefits will be substantially reduced. Cutting Emergency Unemployment Compensation will mean an end to an important source of income for many out-of-work Americans. Unemployment rates have fallen nationwide, but there are still nearly 12 million active job seekers who cannot find work. While unemployment is rarely a favorable situation, in certain parts of the country, the unemployed can expect to find a job more easily...

MALAGA, Spain, Jul 28 (IPS) - "You live there for free, don't you?" asked a woman as she passed by the Buenaventura "corrala", a community in a building in this southern Spanish city occupied since February by families evicted from their homes for falling behind in their mortgage payments due to unemployment. "We don't want any handouts. We want to pay, through a social rent scheme," replied 42-year-old Yuli Fajardo, who was living in a tent before she found shelter along with some 40 other people in one of the 13 spacious apartments in this four-storey block of flats in...

Worst. President. Ever. After four-and-a-half years of Obama four of five American adults sturggle with joblessness and near-poverty conditions.The AP reported: Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream.....

Four out of 5 U.S. adults struggle with joblessness, near poverty or reliance on welfare for at least parts of their lives, a sign of deteriorating economic security and an elusive American dream. Survey data exclusive to The Associated Press points to an increasingly globalized U.S. economy, the widening gap between rich and poor and loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs as reasons for the trend. The findings come as President Barack Obama tries to renew his administration's emphasis on the economy, saying in recent speeches that his highest priority is to "rebuild ladders of opportunity" and reverse income inequality. Hardship...

A Gallup Poll on US Payroll Employment for Age Group 18 to 29 shows Fewer Young Adults Holding Full-Time Jobs in 2013. Fewer Americans aged 18 to 29 worked full time for an employer in June 2013 (43.6%) than did so in June 2012 (47.0%), according to Gallup's Payroll to Population employment rate. The P2P rate for young adults is also down from 45.8% in June 2011 and 46.3% in June 2010. Younger Americans Less Likely to Have Full-Time Work Now, Regardless of Education Older Americans More Likely to Hold Full-Time Jobs Now Than a Year Ago The lack of...

Roughly 200 so-called "worker centers" across the country are representing employees who work in everything from the fast-food industry to the taxi business. But some key Republican lawmakers are asking if those centers are actually acting more like labor unions. The concern is that the rise of these groups has become a way around the rules that govern bona-fide unions -- like requirements to submit financial filings to the feds every year. House education committee Chairman John Kline, R-Minn., and Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tenn., sent a letter this week to newly confirmed Labor Secretary Thomas Perez requesting that he clarify...

In the sixth year of Barack Obama's presidency, America's job-starved economy remains weak, insecure and undernourished. That's not the economic picture reported on the nightly network news, where anchors report only "good" numbers and ignore bad ones. But the painful reality is that the economy is slowing down, even from its widely acknowledged anemic levels. The economic growth rate (as measured by the Gross Domestic Product) has fallen, and many economists have lowered their GDP forecasts to a snail's pace 1.5 percent annualized rate of growth for the past three months. Some say it's slowed to less than 1 percent....

Sometimes I marvel at President Obama's apparent lack of an embarrassment sensor. How can he stand before the American people and deliver speech after speech making the same tired points and pretending he is delivering the speech of the century? Is he truly impervious to feelings of self-consciousness, or is he trying to play us for fools? His speech at Knox College on the economy contained all the ingredients of a vintage Obama speech: much fanfare about little substance; a stunning distortion of his record across the board, especially on the economy; refusal to accept responsibility and blaming others for...

President Barack Obama gave a major economic policy speech yesterday. Here’s what he didn’t say, and probably won’t ever say: Businesses will not begin new, significant hiring this year or in 2014. Business leaders around the country tell me they’re not thinking about new hires right now. Rather, their sole focus is on how to win new customers. Too few people know this, but employees follow customer growth, not the other way around. Most importantly, businesses want to survive. They’ve cut everything to the bone and stored cash, and they won’t risk anything until they experience customer growth. New hires...

As high schools and universities turn out more and more students (like George Mason University), I felt it was time to review the economic environment facing the young people in the US, aka “Millennials.” My conclusion? This is no country for young people. At least in the current state of affairs. Let’s start with healthcare premiums under the “affordable” healthcare act. According to a study by the American Action Forum, 45% of respondents who are currently covered report they would no longer purchase health insurance and would instead pay the penalty each year if their premium costs increase 30% in...