Free Republic

Some fun relevant facts: Maryland's unemployment rate is ~ 5.5% Baltimore unemployment rate is ~ 8.2 % Baltimore unemployment rate for young black men is ~ 37% %Source CNN Money Maryland's minimum wage is $8.25 per hour Baltimore's minimum (called ‘living’) wage is much higher : ~ $11.50 per hour.source baltimorebrew .com Yep, almost $12 per hour. Recall how we are lectured that outlawing these low paying entry level jobs will create better paying jobs, because they all get a raise which they spend. Yep, no HS degree, no work experience, probably an arrest record (try looting businesses) . Sure...

Bell Helicopter announced today that it will lay off 1,100 employees. The Fort Worth-based helicopter company has a location on Pont Des Mouton Road in Lafayette, according to the company's website. The company did not release specifics on which locations will see layoffs, but the communications director did say in a news release that the reduction in workforce will apply to all areas of the business, both management and non-management, and covered and non-covered workers. In addition to its Pont Des Mouton location, Bell Helicopter broke ground in August last year on an 82,300-square-foot aircraft assembly center near the Lafayette...

In 19.9 percent of American families in 2014, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), no one in the family worked. A family, as defined by the BLS, is a “group of two or more persons residing together who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption. In 2014, there were 80,889,000 families in the United States, and in 16,057,000 of those families, or 19.9 percent, no one had a job. The BLS designates a person as “employed” if “during the survey reference week” they “(a) did any work at all as paid employees; (b) worked in...

Wages of America's middle class have dropped below 1970s levels as immigration has surged 325 percent, according to a new congressional report that questions claims that native Americans are economically helped by greater immigration. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service report studied immigration and middle class income from 1945-2013 and found that as immigration slowed between 1945 and 1970, American incomes increased. But when immigration expanded, the incomes of the bottom 90 percent of Americans went flat and then dropped beginning in 2000. In the report to the Senate Judiciary Committee, the CRS reported that the foreign-born population of the United...

While the American voters sent a message of repudiation against the overreach of the executive branch in the November 2014 elections, the executive responded by informing the voters that their message would be ignored. As Republicans won in a landslide election that gave them control of Congress by vowing to stop the overreach of the Obama administration, it simply didn’t matter. In an interview with the Huffington Post last month, Barack Obama conveyed this message by stating that he will, “try to reach out to Republicans and see if they can work with us and where they’re not willing to...

Employers in 31 U.S. states cut jobs last month as weak economic growth weighed on hiring and a slowdown in oil and gas drilling caused big job losses in some states. The Labor Department said Tuesday that unemployment rates rose or were unchanged in 27 states and fell in 23 states. Eighteen states gained jobs, while employment was unchanged in Idaho.

Commentary By Portrait of Patrick Tyrrell Patrick Tyrrell There was good news this month: private-sector job openings rose slightly in February, according to data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Openings rose to 3.8 percent of all private-sector jobs and the job openings—the highest rate since January 2001. Other data for the month showed the unemployment rate for workers age 25-54 (often called prime age workers) ticked downward to 4.6 percent from 4.8 percent.

Since the end of the recession in June 2009, the number of job openings in the private sector has steadily climbed — just as one would expect to happen as the economy recovered. But over those same years, the share of 25- to 54-year-olds who are active in the labor market has steadily fallen...

Dan Joseph is on a mission. Who supports a $50/hour minimum wage? What better place to put forward such a bold initiative than in the free speech zone on the sanctified grounds of George Mason University in Virginia. (VIDEO-AT-LINK)Now, while Joseph was able to find a few supporters, some students on campus knew that raising the minimum wage will lead to job losses and increased pricing for some goods. One man called the law racist and he’s not the only one. The late economist Milton Freidman described minimum wage laws as the most anti-African-American law on the books, as he...

We might be inclined to laugh off the national demonstrations calling for a $15/hr minimum wage for burger-flippers, as the suggestion should be received as utterly ridiculous in any intelligent economic debate. But the left isn’t laughing. They’re undoubtedly ecstatic at the media legs such demonstrations have maintained against all odds, and they can’t wait to roll out these downtrodden fast-food workers as a reason to increase the federal minimum wage, victims as they are of an evil system of economic organization that dares assign a value to labor performed in the context of supply and demand. That evil is,...

ROANOKE, VA (AP) -- Coal producer Xinergy Ltd. and more than two dozen subsidiaries have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Knoxville, Tennessee-based Xinergy filed a Chapter 11 petition last week in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Roanoke, Virginia. The petition lists zero to $50,000 in assets and about $100 million to $500 million in liabilities....

1.) Who’s Fighting For 15? Workers Or Big Labor. A nationwide minimum wage protest planned for Wednesday is being called out by critics who claim the self-proclaimed grassroots movement is actually just a paid stunt by big labor. “This is an orchestrated effort,” Ryan Williams, media advisor for Worker Center Watch, said during a press call Monday. “The union has invested upwards of $20 million.” Additionally, as sources for The Daily Caller News Foundation point out, the SEIU has spent $637,243 in strike benefits to some groups involved despite them not reporting any members. The concept refers to when a...

Despite last month’s poor jobs report, the U.S. labor market is improving. Job creation is running at the fastest pace since the late 1990s, and there is some evidence that wage growth is finally starting to accelerate, albeit modestly.However, one key component is missing from the labor market recovery: rising labor force participation.In March, labor force participation declined 0.1% to 62.7%, the lowest rate since the late 1970s.Why are so few Americans participating in the labor market even as jobs become more plentiful? I see three main reasons.1. An aging population. While the Great Recession inflicted significant damage on the...

New claims for US unemployment insurance benefits rose more than expected last week to their highest level in six weeks, the Labor Department reported Thursday. Initial jobless claims, a sign of the pace of layoffs, climbed to 294,000 in the week ending April 11, an increase of 12,000 from the prior week's slightly upwardly revised number. Analysts had expected claims would hold steady from the previous week. The four-week moving average, which helps to smooth week-over-week volatility, inched up by 250 to 282,750. A year ago the average was 316,000.

If the raccoon coat-wearing youth of the 1920s really were the lost generation, what would you call millennials? Generation Opportunity, “a national, non-partisan youth advocacy organization,” crunched the employment and unemployment data for March in its Millennial Jobs Report for March 2015” and found that: • “The effective (U-6) unemployment rate for 18-29-year-olds, which adjusts for labor force participation by including those who have given up looking for work, is 13.9 percent (NSA). The (U-3) unemployment rate for 18-29 year olds is 9.1 percent (NSA). • “The declining labor force participation rate has created an additional 1.842 million young adults...

Barbra Streisand may not be the brightest star in Hollywood. In fact, sometimes you look into her eyes and get the feeling someone else is driving. The starlet, who once compared President Obama to “kings” and “gods,” penned a March 30 commentary in the Huffington Post singing the praises of the president for “creating” so many jobs in the last five-and-a-half years. The piece, titled, “Have you heard the good news?,” promptly heaps praise on Obama: “In the wake of the financial crisis, President Obama took the helm of a sinking economic ship and help to right it. The unemployment...

The Great Robot Freakout of 2015 has begun, and it looks a lot like the robot freakouts that came before it. In a new survey by CNBC, Americans were asked how concerned they were, if at all, that their jobs could be replaced by technology in the next five years. The level of automation angst was astonishing: About 1 in 8 workers indicated was worried about being displaced. Among those earning less than $30,000, it was a whopping 1 in 4. No doubt these workers have seen travel agents, bank tellers, typists, mid-skilled manufacturing workers and other occupations of yore...

There were 281,000 first-time claims for unemployment for the week ending April 4, the Department of Labor reported Thursday. That was an increase from the previous week's revised 268,000 jobless claims, adjusted for seasonal fluctuations, but better than investors expected. The four-week moving average of claims, meanwhile, fell by 3,000 to 282,250. That average was the lowest since June of 2000, reflecting the ongoing improvement in the U.S. labor market. Low first-time claims for unemployment insurance benefits are viewed as a positive sign for the economy, as fewer layoffs generally indicate greater net hiring. Thursday's good news comes after Friday's...

Poor Barbra Streisand. Just last week the renowned economist (who also describes herself as a “singer,” “actress,” and “activist”) penned an opinion piece titled “Have You Heard the Good News?” about how well the economy is performing under Barack Obama. It was a pep rally of sorts, and all that was missing were the pom-poms. “President Obama’s Administration, with only opposition from the Republicans,” she gushed, “has steadily helped put more than 11 million Americans back to work in the private sector.” Then two days later the dismal jobs report for March was released. Bad timing, for sure. The statistic...

12,000 non-disabled adults were in Maine’s SNAP program before Jan. 1 - a number that dropped to 2,680 by the end of March. More than 9,000 Maine residents have been removed from the state's food stamp program since Republican Gov. Paul LePage's administration began enforcing work and volunteer requirements. The new rules prevent adults who are not disabled and do not have dependents from receiving food stamps for more than three months - unless they work at least 20 hours a week, participate in a work-training program or meet volunteering requirements. DHHS Commissioner Mary Mayhew said the goal of the...