Free Republic

Vice President Joseph R. Biden said Democratic presidential candidates in 2016 should embrace President Obama’s economic policies and “run on what we have done” instead of running away from the administration. “In my view, those seeking to lead the nation should protect and defend and run, yes run, on what we’ve done and own what we have done,” Mr. Biden said in a speech in Des Moines, Iowa. “Stand for what we have done. Acknowledge what we have done. And be judged on what we have done, if we have any chance for continued resurgence in 2016.” He added, “Some...

Last Friday’s employment numbers where the subject of a lot of spin from the White House to make them sound good and from Republican politicians to make them sound bad, but almost no one talked about the most important finding from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And that finding was that, since the start of the recession in 2007 (which allegedly ended in June 2009) the number of foreign workers employed in the United States rose by 1.7 million, while the number of American-born workers employed decreased by 1.5 million. About the only one in Washington talking about this astonishing...

MaxUrderer wrote: You know what would be even BETTER? If we hadn't invaded a Iraq and destabilized the entire regime in the first place. If we had treated 9/11 as what it WAS, a crime, had caught the perpetrators and brought them to justice, and had left the evil but stabilizing dictator in place as we've done in Saudi Arabia. So no, John, Iraq was neither a "victory" nor a "war". It was a mistake. And it will NEVER be Obama's fault. It'll ALWAYS be Bush's fault. To summarize Conservative sentiment regarding Iraq: "That idiot Obama didn't fix our incredible...

Americans’ views of President Barack Obama have improved slightly in the past two months, and opinions are more positive about the direction of the country and the health of the economy, an Associated Press-GfK poll finds. A slim majority now approves of the way Obama is handling unemployment, according to the poll, conducted before Friday’s release of a surprisingly strong jobs report. Forty-seven percent of those surveyed approve of how Obama is doing his job, compared with 41 percent in December, and 51 percent approve of his handling of unemployment, compared with 44 percent before. Nearly half say the economy...

Years of unending news stories on U.S. government programs of surveillance, rendition and torture have apparently chilled the speech of even top business executives in the United States.

"Jobs report crushes it." "The streak continues." "It's raining jobs!" "That's great news." "This is a great jobs report across the board." From the tone of these headlines, and many others like them, you'd think the economy added a million jobs last month, instead of 257,000.

Illinois still lays claim to the worst recession recovery in the nation. According to the BLS household survey, there are still 216,000 fewer Illinoisans working than when the Great Recession began, the worst of any state and one of only 22 states that still have fewer people working than when the recession started. .... The business-establishment survey for the 2008-2014 period shows 114,000 fewer payroll jobs in Illinois than when the recession began, the second-worst record of any state, and one of only 15 states yet to break even on the recession. Only New Jersey is down more payroll jobs....

The unemployment rate was 5.7%, according to figures released Friday by the U.S. Labor Department, slightly higher than the December rate as more Americans re-entered the work force. Economists had predicted 234,000 new jobs last month and that the unemployment rate would hold steady at 5.6%. Average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls rose by 0.5% in January, a turnaround from December, when wages fell by 5 cents to $24.57. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings have risen by just 1.7%, well below the 3% rate economists say is healthy. The labor force participation rate...

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – Notices have gone out to more than 1,700 Izod Center workers that they'll lose their jobs by the end of March because the arena is closing. Almost all of the employees are part-time. The Record (http://bit.ly/1zPZgk1 ) reports the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority says the layoffs include 618 stagehands, 263 security guards, 169 admissions workers, 116 trades workers, 66 box office employees, and 50 parking attendants....

Weatherford International plans to cut 5,000 jobs, or about 9 percent of its workforce, by the end of the first quarter as the oil services company tries to save costs amid sinking oil prices and budget cuts. The job cuts will focus on both operating and support positions and a majority of the reductions will be in the Western Hemisphere, the company said in a statement. Weatherford, which currently employs about 56,000 people across the world, expects the job cuts to result in annualized savings of over $350 million. "Due to the quickly changing market conditions, we are aligning and...

While you lost your doctor, your premiums skyrocketed, the deductibles went through the roof, co-pays were larger than ever, your medical care took a dive While the country is busy blaming the measles outbreak at Disneyland on the official story line that it came from “overseas,” and the main stream media is pushing the agenda of vaccination, blaming the outbreak on the statistically insignificant number of Americans who refuse to vaccinate their children, the media is deliberately ignoring the elephant in the room, the illegal aliens bussed and flown in continuously since last year by this administration from countries where...

Gallup CEO and Chairman Jim Clifton doubled-down on his comments earlier in the week on the misleading Obama unemployment rate. Obama says the unemployment rate is 5.6% which is very misleading. Clifton went on America’s Newsroom today to explain the misleading government numbers. “The number of full-time jobs, and that’s what everybody wants, as a percent of the total population, is the lowest it’s ever been… The other thing that is very misleading about that number is the more people that drop out, the better the number gets. In the recession we lost 13 million jobs. Only 3 million have...

Two phrases that Daniel Patrick Moynihan put into America’s political lexicon two decades ago are increasingly pertinent. They explain the insufficient dismay about recent economic numbers. Moynihan said that when deviant behaviors — e.g., violent crime, or births to unmarried women — reach a certain level, society soothes itself by “defining deviancy down.” It de-stigmatizes the behaviors by declaring them normal. And sometimes, Moynihan said, social problems are the result of “iatrogenic government.” In medicine, an iatrogenic ailment is inadvertently induced by a physician or medicine; in social policy, iatrogenic problems are caused by government. When the economy grew by...

resident Barack Obama, in his State of the Union speech, called for a minimum-wage hike and for government-mandated paid family and medical leave. "We are the only advanced country on Earth," said the President, "that doesn't guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave to our workers." On the minimum wage, Obama issued this challenge: "And to everyone in this Congress who still refuses to raise the minimum wage, I say this: If you truly believe you could work full-time and support a family on less than $15,000 a year, try it. If not, vote to give millions of the...

It’s not every day you see you see the chairman and CEO of the Gallup polling organization come out and declare the official unemployment rate number is extremely misleading, or, as the headline suggests, “a big lie”: ... There’s another reason why the official rate is misleading. Say you’re an out-of-work engineer or healthcare worker or construction worker or retail manager: If you perform a minimum of one hour of work in a week and are paid at least $20 — maybe someone pays you to mow their lawn — you’re not officially counted as unemployed in the much-reported 5.6%....

Information technology workers at Southern California Edison (SCE) are being laid off and replaced by workers from India. Some employees are training their H-1B visa holding replacements, and many have already lost their jobs...The H-1B program "was supposed to be for projects and jobs that American workers could not fill," this worker said. "But we're doing our job. It's not like they are bringing in these guys for new positions that nobody can fill. "Not one of these jobs being filled by India was a job that an Edison employee wasn't already performing," he said...SCE employees said that since August,...

Gallup CEO Jim Clifton denounced the White House and the news media on Tuesday for wildly misinforming the public on the current unemployment numbers. According to the report, Obama's overtly dishonest and partisan Labor Department has once again published "extremely misleading" figures that deliberately misrepresent the nation's unemployment rate as significantly better off than they are...

Out Wednesday, ADP’s January National Employment Report shows private payrolls adding 213,000 jobs in the first month of 2015. The January figure was somewhat lower than the 220,000 economists had been anticipating, however, the payroll provider hiked its November and December readings comfortably. ADP now says 274,000 jobs were added in November up from 227,000 and that 253,000 jobs were added in December from 241,000. In a press release ADP chief Carlos Rodriguez noted that January’s gains were in line with the 12-month average of over 200,000 jobs added. Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi added, “Employment posted another solid...

We at IBD often get lambasted for our gloomy take on the monthly jobs data that emerge from the government. After all, if the government puts it out, it can't be inaccurate, can it? And it must be honest, right? Well, we're not alone in casting aspersions on the dicey employment numbers.

For those who are tired of seeing their hard earned money forcibly seized by the government and redistributed to those who refuse to contribute anything of value to society. Even the staunchest of conservatives and libertarians understands that a civilized society needs to provide some level of support for those who are sick, disabled, or simply going through a rough period like losing a job. Americans are a generous people and for the most part we’re all willing to chip in to make our country a better place. But we can all probably agree that within the social programs designed...