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Unemployment in the city of Springfield rose in January to 10.2 percent from a revised 9.4 percent in December 2014. The change was likely a reflection of seasonal hiring trends as stores and warehouses let Christmas season help go. But the city's unemployment rate for January was lower than the 12.7 percent jobless rate recorded in January 2014. And the Greater Springfield regional unemployment rate in January was 5.9 percent, down from 6.3 percent the month before and 7.7 percent a year ago. ... The city of Springfield's labor force was 63,799, down from 64,208 a month ago and down...

Officials at Travelers Insurance confirmed that 90 people will be laid off from their positions with the company in Connecticut. "Our personal insurance business is serving a changing marketplace, and prudently managing expenses is more critical than ever to remain competitive," said the company in a statement Tuesday. "We are dedicated to being a market leader." There still be 7,800 employees in Connecticut after the staff reductions, company officials said. Officials added that Travelers is still one of the largest employers in the state.

A report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows that Connecticut was last in economic growth last year, the only state in the nation where the combined value of goods and services produced shrank compared with 2011. The report measures GDP, the sum of what residents, businesses and the government spend, plus investments and net exports. The value is in constant 2005 dollars, which controls for inflation. By that measure, total state GDP fell $250 million in 2012, to $197.2 billion. Not only did the state GDP decrease by 0.1 percent in 2012, it fell by the same amount in...

New data shows Connecticut's economy was damaged more severely than most economists originally thought in the last recession, according to a provocative new report released Wednesday by the University of Connecticut's economic think-tank. The latest analysis from the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis warned the state "has an even steeper hill to climb" and could see little or no net job growth over the next 18 months, a grim prospect as Gov. Dannel P. Malloy looks ahead to a re-election campaign in 2014. And the study suggested that the state technically might still be in a recession. The center also...

The record of President Obama’s first three years in office is in, and nothing that happens now can go back and change that. What that record shows is that President Obama, with his throwback, old-fashioned, 1970s Keynesian economics, has put America through the worst recovery from a recession since the Great Depression. The recession started in December, 2007. Go to the website of the National Bureau of Economic Research (www.nber.org) to see the complete history of America’s recessions. What that history reveals is that before this last recession, since the Great Depression recessions in America have lasted an average of...

SPRINGFIELD – MassMutual confirmed Wednesday night it will lay off 75 employees at its Springfield operation, primarily within the information technology department, as part of a restructuring, a company official said. Mark E. Cybulski, director of corporate relations, said the layoffs were the result of a review of operations for its Enterprise Technology Organization, which is in charge of information technology systems.

According to various electronic news media sources, the Debt Commission's plan as reported yesterday is a fraud. #1 There is little to no chance of it being enacted in full. #2 If it were, and it were to accomplish what the members say it will, it would reduce the deficit by $4 Trillion over the next 9 years. Last...if it did, given that the deficit is now running in the $1.5 Trillion dollar range, 9 years from now we would have dug a $10 Trillion deeper hole...give or take a few $Billion.

Just got back from the San Francisco protest. Good turnout, and here are some pics: http://home.comcast.net/~webspace06/SF_5-1-06 I go to all of the big San Francisco marches, and I can't help noticing that no matter what the cause - whether it's immgration, or bringing the troops home, or impeaching the President, or stopping global warming - it always seems that Che Guevera gets top billing. Interesting.

Populism vs. Economics By Arnold Kling "Each of the four schools that together represent the American foreign policy debate makes distinct contributions to national power, and each is well matched with the others -- capable of complementing one another and of flexibly combining in many ways to meet changing circumstances." -- Walter Russell Mead Historian Walter Russell Mead's Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How it Changed the World is among the most stimulating books in recent years. Although it is focused on American approaches to foreign policy, the off-hand insights that Mead offers about attitudes toward economic issues are...