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The National Republican Senatorial Committee points out that North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan and other vulnerable Senate Democrats are now whacking the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid… for enacting changes required by Obamacare. Hey, Senator Hagan, if you want to blame someone, blame the foolish or dishonest lawmakers who voted for the law! Wait a minute, that’s you! In 2009, Senator Kay Hagan (D-NC) promised North Carolinians who depend on Medicare that she was going to “protect Medicare” and that they would “not see a drop in their Medicare coverage.”
 But in 2010 Kay Hagan voted to slash Medicare Advantage...

Jan 30 (Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, but the underlying trend suggested the labor market continued to heal. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 19,000 to a seasonally adjusted 348,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Claims for the prior week were revised to show 3,000 more applications received than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast first-time applications for jobless benefits rising to 330,000 in the week ended Jan. 25. The four-week moving average for new claims, considered a better measure of underlying labor...

WASHINGTON, Jan 28 (Reuters) - Orders for long-lasting U.S. manufactured goods unexpectedly fell in December as did a gauge of planned business spending on capital goods, which could cast a shadow on an otherwise bright economic outlook. The Commerce Department said on Tuesday durable goods orders dropped 4.3 percent, pulled down by weak demand for transportation equipment, primary metals, computers and electronic products and capital goods.

Target Corp. said Tuesday that it will stop offering health insurance to its part-time employees because new online health exchanges offer workers an opportunity to buy coverage. The Minneapolis-based retailer will give each worker $500 to help buy health insurance, and has arranged for one-on-one consultations with benefits manager Towers Watson to help with the transition. The retailer announced the decision through its online site, “A Bullseye View: Behind the Scenes at Target,” in a Q&A with Jodee Kozlak, Target’s executive vice president of human resources. In the article, Kozlak acknowledged the disruption to workers. But she said the exchanges...

Humana Inc., the nation's fourth-largest health insurer by market share, warned Thursday that the risk pool of applicants for insurance through President Obama's health care law would be worse than previously expected. Ever since the botched rollout of the health care law's exchanges in October, the policy community has been eager to know more about the mix of individuals signing up for insurance through the law. Because the law forces insurers to cover those with pre-existing conditions, insurers need to attract a critical mass of young and healthy individuals with lower medical costs into the exchanges to offset the cost....

(Reuters) - The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose last week to the highest level in nearly nine months, casting a shadow on the labor market. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 10,000 to a seasonally adjusted 379,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That was the highest level since March and marked the second straight week that claims have risen. Claims for the prior week were revised to show 1,000 more applications received than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had expected first-time applications to fall to 334,000 last week.

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The first month of the new health law’s rollout reveals an unexpected pattern in several states: a crush of people applying for an expansion of Medicaid and a trickle of sign-ups for private insurance. This early imbalance — in some places, nine out of 10 enrollees are in Medicaid — has taken some experts by surprise. The Affordable Care Act, which expanded Medicaid to cover millions of the poorest Americans who couldn’t otherwise afford coverage, envisions a more even split with an expanded, robust private market. “When we first saw the numbers, everyone’s eyes kind of bugged out,” said Matt...

The first month of the new health law’s rollout reveals an unexpected pattern in several states: a crush of people applying for an expansion of Medicaid and a trickle of sign-ups for private insurance. This early imbalance — in some places, nine out of 10 enrollees are in Medicaid — has taken some experts by surprise. The Affordable Care Act, which expanded Medicaid to cover millions of the poorest Americans who couldn’t otherwise afford coverage, envisions a more even split with an expanded, robust private market. “When we first saw the numbers, everyone’s eyes kind of bugged out,” said Matt...

"The labor market appears to be going sideways," said Robert Kleinhenz, chief economist at Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. "We see a month of improvement and maybe a month of retrenchment, and that's a discouraging story to report." Earlier this year, California was outpacing the nation's rate of job creation, with payroll growth hovering around 2%. But since August 2012, the state has added 223,900 jobs for a growth rate of 1.5%. "Here we are in the middle of the year ... and the economy has shifted down to second gear," Kleinhenz said.

The number of U.S. residents living in poverty edged up to 46.5 million last year, the latest sign that an economic recovery marked by a stock market boom has not trickled down to ordinary Americans. The figures from the Census Bureau on Tuesday highlighted the lingering scars from the 2007-2009 recession and added fresh fuel to debates over government austerity and widening income inequality. It could also renew calls to raise the minimum wage. Although the number of people in poverty went up from 46.2 million in 2011, the national poverty rate was unchanged at 15 percent, the annual report...

Aleo Solar AG, a German solar-module manufacturer that has its U.S. headquarters in Denver, said it will withdraw from the United States immediately. ... the US operation had failed to meet recent sales targets and was not operating profitably

This is the first consecutive monthly drop in 14 months and the largest miss vs expectations on record. Printing at 76.8 (against an expectation of 82.0), this is the lowest in 5 months and points to the picture we have been painting of a consumer increasingly affected by rising rates and soaring gas prices amid stagnant incomes. As Citi notes below, this is the exact same pattern we have seen play out in the last 2 cycles and suggest significant downside risk to US equities. The economic outlook sub-index collapsed to its lowest since January. Biggest miss on the headline...

Consumer sentiment in the U.S. has deteriorated by much more than anticipated in the month of September, according to a report released by Thomson Reuters and the University of Michigan on Friday. The report said the preliminary reading on the consumer sentiment index for September came in at 76.8, down from August's final reading of 82.1. Economists had expected the index to edge down to 82.0. With the much bigger than expected decrease, the consumer sentiment index fell to its lowest level since hitting 76.4 in April. Reuters said survey director Richard Curtin attributed the decline to "growing concerns that...

The number of new U.S. jobless claims fell sharply last week but much of the decline appeared due to technical problems in claims processing, clouding the last major reading of labor market health before a Federal Reserve meeting. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits slipped 31,000 to a seasonally adjusted 292,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. That was the lowest level of claims since 2006, confounding analysts' expectations for a mild increase. But a department analyst said the majority of the decline appeared to be because two states were upgrading their computer systems and did not process all the...

Reporting on the latest unemployment reports by the U.S. government, ABCNews's Facebook page curiously left out the most newsworthy statistic: 63.2 percent. That's where the labor force participation rate stands right now. [see screen capture below the page break] It's the lowest it's been since 1978. But here's how ABCNews's social media editors teased Facebook visitors: The U.S. economy added 169,000 jobs in August -- a bit weaker than economists expected. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 7.3%: http://abcn.ws/17JQof4 The linked September 6 story, by Susanna Kim, noted that the labor force participation rate has been steadily declining on President...

U.S. economic growth unexpectedly accelerated in the second quarter, laying a firmer foundation for the rest of the year that could bring the Federal Reserve a step closer to cutting back its monetary stimulus. Gross domestic product grew at a 1.7 percent annual rate, the Commerce Department said on Wednesday, stepping up from the first-quarter's downwardly revised 1.1 percent expansion pace.

Illinois' $97 billion pension problem isn't doing any favors for Chicago. Moody's Investors Service late Wednesday downgraded the city's debt rating from Aa3 to A3 because of the city's "very large and growing" pension liability.

Unemployment rates rose in 28 U.S. states last month, partly because more Americans started looking for work and not all of them found jobs. … Nationally, the unemployment rate remained 7.6 percent in June, even though employers added 195,000 jobs. …

The Department of Labor reported today that: In the week ending July 13, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 334,000, a decrease of 24,000 from the previous week’s revised figure of 358,000. That figure was on a seasonally adjusted basis. If we look at the non seasonally (NSA) adjusted data, initial jobless claims (purple) rose 25,350 from 383,360 to 408,710. ijccc071813 Continuing claims rose 333,800. cjc071813 Consumer confidence? It fell from -27.3 to -28.4. Notice that it has not been above 0 since the recession of 2001. bcc071813 Summertime blues indeed.