Free Republic

div class="content">Interested why despite the euphoric headline NFP print, a cursory glance deeper inside the payrolls report reveals weakness after weakness, with both participation plunging again and wages the worst since last summer? Here is the answer: 4 of the top 5 largest job additions in September, retail trade, leisure and hospitality, education and health and temp help, were of the lowest quality, and paying, jobs possible. So yes, America added a whole lot of minimum wage waiters, store clerks, groundskeepers and temps: truly the stuff New Normal "recoveries" are made of.

The U.S. unemployment rate is below 6% for the first time in more than six years. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday morning, Oct. 3, that the economy added 248,000 jobs in September, pushing the unemployment rate down to 5.9% from 6.1% in August. The unemployment rate hadn’t been below the 6% mark since July 2008, according to BLS historical data. Employment increased most strongly in professional and business services, retail trade and health care, the government said. The government said the number of people unemployed in September declined by 329,000 to 9.3 million. During the last year,...

The U.S. economy added 248,000 jobs in September as labor markets rediscovered the momentum gained earlier this year. The headline unemployment rate dropped unexpectedly to 5.9% from 6.1% The better-than-expected figures are certain to rekindle the debate over the timing and trajectory of interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve, as the positive report will have many economists looking for rates to move higher sooner rather than later. In August the economy generated just 142,000 new jobs, well below expectations on weakness in major sectors including manufacturing, retail and transportation. That number was revised upward to 180,000 on Friday, according...

This morning I'm watching Bloomberg news, and they just started the hour with a quick discussion of unemployment, in anticipation of the week's statistics. I am left distinctly unenthused by the nature of that "discussion". Nobody is talking about unemployment, as a lack of jobs. We have as a country, one big problem. We have sent millions of AMERICAN JOBS to other countries. Many to the Peoples Republic of China. Our solution is so simple. America needs to bring back American jobs. Nobody is willing to say that. We continue as a nation to run a 30 billion trade deficit...

First-time claims for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly decreased in the week ended September 27th, according to a report released by the Labor Department on Thursday. The report said initial jobless claims fell to 287,000, a decrease of 8,000 from the previous week's revised level of 295,000. The pullback came as a surprise to economists, who had expected jobless claims to climb to 297,000 from the 293,000 originally reported for the previous week. The Labor Department said the less volatile four-week moving average also edged down to 294,750, a decrease of 4,250 from the previous week's revised average of 299,000. With...

The Great Recession has lasted a lot longer for some than for others. A new survey from Rutgers University’s John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development found that “one in five workers - or nearly 30 million people - say they were laid off from a job in the past five years," dating back to the end of the recession in June 2009. "Nearly 4 in 10 of these laid-off workers say they searched for a job for more than seven months before finding another one; one in five workers laid off during the past five years never found another...

Despite struggling with the ongoing border crisis, Texas is the number three state in terms of job growth, creating more than 20,000 jobs in August alone, with an unemployment rate of just 5.3%. So, what is Texas doing right? […] (President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Richard) Fisher explained that Texas is way ahead of much of the nation economically largely due to its highly diversified economy, pro-business government and lack of income tax. …

<p>The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose less than expected last week, suggesting an acceleration in job growth in September.</p> <p>Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 12,000 to a seasonally adjusted 293,000 for the week ended Sept.20, the Labor Department said on Thursday.</p>

America's unemployment rate as measured by the Labor Department vastly underrepresents the number of Americans actually out of work, hedge fund manager Kyle Bass told CNBC. Earlier this month, the government said the nation's unemployment rate fell to 6.1 percent in August, while job growth cooled with just 142,000 nonfarm payrolls added. "Look at unemployment, the way it's calculated is it's semi-rigged," he argued in a "Squawk Box" interview. "It will trend down to the 5 percent range just because people stop looking for a job." "If you take everyone that has dropped out of the workforce since the beginning...

<p>Every now and then I see an article that is so reality deficient that it commits what amounts to sexual assault against common sense. Actually I see them all the time, but one in particular had me shaking my head.</p>

With school employees returning to work, Sonoma County’s unemployment rate dipped in August to 5.4 percent, the lowest rate for the month in seven years. In August, Sonoma had the fifth-lowest unemployment rate among the state’s 58 counties. Marin ranked first with a rate of 4.2 percent. Napa ranked fourth at 4.8 percent, Mendocino was 12th at 6.1 percent and Lake, 40th at 8.9 percent.

The number of people who filed for unemployment assistance in the U.S. last week fell to the lowest level since mid-July, fuelling optimism over the strength of the labor market, official data showed on Thursday. In a report, the U.S. Department of Labor said the number of individuals filing for initial jobless benefits in the week ending September 13 decreased by 36,000 to a seasonally adjusted 280,000 from the previous week’s revised total of 316,000. Analysts had expected jobless claims to fall by 11,000 to 305,000 last week. Continuing jobless claims in the week ended September 6 fell to 2.429...

Economy In Crisis: A new study by the Illinois Policy Institute shows in the past four years, the number of new food-stamp recipients in the state has outpaced new jobs nearly 2-to-1. Illinois Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn, locked in a tight re-election battle with self-made billionaire Republican Bruce Rauner, has been arguing that Illinois, arguably the bluest of blue states, has turned the fiscal corner and is on its way back. The recovery may be slower than Quinn wants it to be — but, he says, it is real. It is an odd recovery, though, that makes more people dependent...

So far, if measured by household income, the 21st century has not been a good one for the United States of America. In its annual report on "Income and Poverty in the United States," released on Tuesday, the Census Bureau described real median household income as stagnating for two years after declining for two. "Median household income was $51,939 in 2013, not statistically different in real terms from the 2012 median of $51,759," said the Census Bureau. "This is the second consecutive year that the annual change was not statistically significant, following two consecutive years of annual declines in median...

The Census Bureau's annual report on poverty, released Tuesday, is noteworthy because this year marks the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson's launch of the War on Poverty. Liberals claim that the war has failed because we didn't spend enough money. Their answer is to spend more. But the facts show otherwise. Since its beginning, U.S. taxpayers have spent $22 trillion on Johnson's War on Poverty (in constant 2012 dollars). Adjusting for inflation, that's three times more than was spent on all military wars since the American Revolution. The federal government currently runs more than 80 means-tested welfare programs. These...

For every job created in the state of Illinois, two people sign-up for food stamps—not exactly an encouraging statistic. The state ranked ‘dead last’ across America for job growth in 2014, according to the Illinois Policy.Not only is the economically-challenged state failing to create positions in the private sector, it actually lost nearly 6,000 jobs between January and July of this year. Since the financial crisis of 2008, Illinois has almost 300,000 fewer workers:  The pace at which Illinois has been creating jobs is simply not good enough for Illinois families, and policy mistakes, such as the historic 2011 tax hikes,...

This week, the U.S. Census Bureau is scheduled to release its annual poverty report. The report will be notable because this year marks the 50th anniversary of the launch of President Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty. In his January 1964 State of the Union address, Johnson proclaimed, “This administration today, here and now, declares unconditional war on poverty in America.”[1] Since that time, U.S. taxpayers have spent over $22 trillion on anti-poverty programs (in constant 2012 dollars). Adjusted for inflation, this spending (which does not include Social Security or Medicare) is three times the cost of all military wars in...

Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress on Tuesday that he would recommend deploying United States combat forces against Islamic extremists in specific operations if the current strategy of airstrikes was not successful, raising the possibility of the kind of escalation that President Obama has flatly ruled out. General Dempsey said that the ground forces would likely be Special Operations commands who could call in airstrikes from the ground. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, he said that while he was confident in the ability of the coalition of American, European...

In June 2014, there were 46,496,145 recipients of the food stamp program, which is enough to fill the Yankee Stadium 925 times, according to data from the Department of Agriculture (USDA). The Yankee Stadium is equipped to hold 50,291 persons, meaning that the 46,496,145 Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients in June 2014 could fill the stadium 925 times. The number of recipients was up 270,999 since the previous month in May 2014 when there were 46,225,146 individuals participating in the program. Similarly, the number of households participating in the SNAP program has increased as well from the 22,590,393 participating...

Recently we reported there are 92 million Americans out of work who didn’t look for employment last month – while there were 9 million out of work who were still looking. And you must understand, since the 92 million aren’t looking, they’re not counted as “unemployed” therefore giving the impression that American unemployment is only 6.1 percent. Well, we haven’t looked at the growth of the welfare nanny-state for sometime. As we are winding down the baseball season — which is the last season for Yankee stalwart Derek Jeter — I figured we could pay tribute to the Yankees as...