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President Donald Trump’s economy proved it’s not going down without a fight. An excellent new jobs report has Keynesian New York Times economist Paul Krugman babbling about a Trump conspiracy on Twitter to make sense of it.

Stocks rose sharply Friday after the U.S. May jobs report showed a surprise 2.5 million jump in payrolls and a drop in the unemployment rate to 13.3% as businesses began to reopen from the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. How are benchmarks performing? The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +3.16% jumped 692.87 points, or 2.6%, to 26,974.69, while the S&P 500 SPX, +2.53% rose 68.63 points, or 2.2%, to 3,180.98. The Nasdaq Composite COMP, +1.88% advanced 160.03 points, or 1.7%, to 9,775.85. On Thursday, the Dow ended 11.93 points, or less than 0.1%, higher at 26,281.82. The fourth straight gain matches a...

Nonfarm payrolls rose by 2.5 million in May and the unemployment rate fell to 13.3%. Wall Street estimates had been for a decline of 8.3 million and a jobless level of 19.5%, which would have been the worst since the Great Depression era. Much of the gain came from those classified as temporary layoffs due to the coronavirus-related economic shutdown. Leisure and hospitality represented almost half the jobs gained. Employment stunningly rose by 2.5 million in May and the jobless rate declined to 13.3%, according to data Friday from the Labor Department that was far better than economists had...

President Donald Trump took a victory lap on news of a 13.3% US unemployment rate Friday, announcing in a tweet he would be holding a surprise news conference at 10:00 a.m.

TRENDING: George Floyd Coronavirus Donald Trump Joe Biden TheHill.com Trump touts surprise job figures: 'These numbers are incredible' By Morgan Chalfant - 06/05/20 09:22 AM EDT 690 24 AddThis Sharing Buttons Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Just In... Three alleged members of far-right movement charged with attempting to incite violence at Las Vegas protests State Watch — 2m 10s ago Former NYPD commissioner Kelly: If unrest continues, 'we are going to need the National Guard' Media — 10m 36s ago At least five Alabama football players have tested positive for the coronavirus: report News — 18m 24s ago Justice...

President Trump holds a Press Conference on 6/5/2020 at 10AM EDT. Links below. https://www.whitehouse.gov/live/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFCvKNOU8Hg&feature=youtu.be

The U.S. unemployment rate unexpectedly dropped to 13.3 percent in May, down from a record high in April as the nation's economy began to gradually reopen from the coronavirus lockdown.

As the economy recovers, public policy faces an inevitable dilemma. How do we wean the economy from support? This comes to the head with federal support for unemployment insurance -- $600 per week, set to expire at the end of July. The unemployment rate will still be high in July. Congress seems to have largely given up, in public, of thinking clearly about the economic purpose of policies, and now the discussion is entirely in terms of who deserves additional "help," often in moral terms -- "people" vs "corporations," various regions, sizes of business, "communities," and so on. How can...

The number of jobs lost due to the coronavirus shutdown continue to mount, with the latest weekly total of Americans applying for unemployment benefits topping 2 million, yet again. The latest swath of applications brings the total amount of jobless claims to more than 40 million over the past 10 weeks, wiping out the 20 million jobs added over the last decade by a two-to-one margin. But some states have been feeling the impact of job losses more than others. A Yahoo Finance review of jobless claims data from the U.S. Department of Labor shows that Georgia and other states...

The American economy is deteriorating “with alarming speed,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell said recently, signaling that the government’s response to COVID-19 put people in a difficult financial situation. Though Powell predicts this problem is temporary, a closer look at growing unemployment numbers shows that America might not bounce back quickly once the lockdowns end. To young people in school or who have recently graduated, the current situation might seem like a minor obstacle. But to older siblings who suffered during the 2008 recession, a broken economy doesn’t sound like a minor problem at all. As a matter of...

We use micro data on earnings together with the details of each state’s UI system under the CARES Act to compute the entire distribution of current UI benefits. The median replacement rate is 134%. Two-thirds of UI eligible workers can receive benefits which exceed lost earnings and one-fifth can receive benefits at least double lost earnings. There is sizable variation in the effects of the CARES Act across occupations and states, with important distributional consequences. We show how alternative UI expansion policies would change the distribution of UI benefits and thus affect resulting liquidity provision, progressivity, and labor supply incentives.

New numbers released Thursday show that Wisconsin lost 439,400 jobs in a five-week period after the state went into lockdown in March, a jaw-dropping number that has no historical parallel. “Today's report shows the significant impact that the COVID-19 global pandemic has had on the Wisconsin economy and underscores the importance of rationally and safely reopening our state,” said Department of Workforce Development Secretary Caleb Frostman in a press release announcing the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. “A strategy based on science that reduces the likelihood of additional outbreaks and further economic instability is the only way to get...

'There's no one in the U.S. that does what we do. That would leave the option of really going to Asia...and there's no chance that they can deliver the kind of quality that we do." Leupold is a 113-year-old, family-owned business manufacturing rifle scopes, firearm sights, and other optics in Beaverton, Oregon. With more than 650 employees and a factory that runs seven days a week, they manufacture the types of products that have to work every time, under pressure.“That moment of truth when is when you’re behind that sight and pulling the trigger, and we want to make sure...

While tens of millions of Americans are wringing their hands and wondering whether or not their jobs are ever going to come back, Joe Biden is promising to eliminate the employment prospects of tens of thousands of additional people. How? By “killing” the Keystone XL pipeline. Assuming such a feat is even possible without risking the government losing a very expensive lawsuit, the downstream impact of such a decision would produce plenty of totally avoidable disasters for people in multiple states. And at the same time, at least under current conditions in the oil market, it would have almost...

As the U.S. aims to reduce the spread of COVID-19, tens of thousands of Americans have applied for contact tracer roles to help track cases and exposure, according to The New York Times. Five things to know about these workers: 1. At least 11,142 contact tracers are working now in the U.S., according to a survey conducted in late April by NPR. The number may be higher since figures for all states in the late April survey have not been updated. 2. Estimates of how many contact tracers are needed nationwide range from 100,000 to 300,000, according to NPR and...

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released unemployment data on Friday showing that the U.S. economy lost over 20 million jobs in April with the unemployment rate spiking to 14.7 percent, the worst since the Great Depression. The report reinforces what many have already seen up close, which is the continuing economic carnage on the American economy caused by the coronavirus. Here’s the scary part, as shocking as the data is, reality is much worse because of quirks in the BLS methodology. If 14.7 percent unemployment is a “portrait of devastation,” as the New York Times referred to it, then...

Over the past weeks, Americans’ efforts to slow COVID-19’s spread have helped flatten the curve. As a result of this action, the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ (BLS) April Employment Situation report shows that nonfarm payroll employment fell by 20.5 million and the unemployment rate (U-3) jumped 10.3 percentage points to 14.7 percent. Both of these monthly changes are the largest in the series’ histories, as never before has the United States halted large portions of its economic activity.While April’s jobs numbers may astound Americans, the economy’s strength earlier this year put the Nation in a better position to make...

Nonfarm payroll employment declined by 20.5 million in April, and the unemployment rate increased to 14.7 percent, reflecting the widespread impact on the job market of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic and efforts to contain it. Employment fell sharply in all major industry sectors, with a particularly large decline in the leisure and hospitality sector. The response rate for the household survey continued to be adversely affected by pandemic-related issues, while that for the establishment survey returned to a normal range in April. In addition, there were changes to the estimation methods for the establishment survey to better account for the...

With much of the American economy in self-imposed shutdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus, April's colossal surge in unemployment delivered a historic blow to workers. The US economy lost 20.5 million jobs in April, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday — by far the most sudden and largest decline since the government began tracking the data in 1939. Those losses follow steep cutbacks in March as well, when employers slashed 870,000 jobs. Those two months amount to layoffs so severe, they moire than double the 8.7 million jobs lost during the financial crisis. For many Americans who lost...

NOTE: This story has been edited to reflect that the final version of the bill didn’t attempt to reduce the amount of time a governor could call for a state of emergency. As promised, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer has vetoed legislation that would have shortened the length of some of her executive orders. Senate Bill 858 would have amended Michigan’s Emergency Management Act of 1976, laying out deadlines for when some of Whitmer’s executive orders would end. Notably, it would have allowed restaurants, bars, gyms and other public-facing businesses to open May 15 with social distancing measures in place. The bill...