Free Republic

The unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent because another 522,000 adults quit looking for work and are no longer counted. In the weakest recovery since the Great Depression more than four-fifths of the reduction in unemployment has been accomplished by a dropping adult labor force participation rate—essentially, persuading adults they don’t need a job, or the job they could find is not worth having. In the first quarter, growth slowed to 2.2 percent and was largely sustained by consumers taking on more debt, and additions to business inventory. Gains in manufacturing production have not instigated stronger improvements in employment largely...

Five million Americans have been thrown under the bus. They are walking around dazed, outcast, and defeated. Worst of all, they are not even counted in official tallies of the unemployed. They are those whom the Obama administration simply wishes to ignore: working-age adults who have dropped out of the labor market completely. They are those for whom the economic recovery underway should have created jobs but has not. Despite Obama's latest assertion of having created 4 million jobs in the last 26 months, the reality is that in the past two years, 5.4 million workers have left the job...

The nation's unemployment lines grew longer last week, sending Wall Street on the run for a third straight day. More newly fired people filed claims than analysts had expected, a sign that layoffs are back as businesses hunker down against the threat of a double-dip recession. The Labor Department's jobless claims were the highest in six months, rising by 2,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 484,000. Analysts had expected filings to fall. Claims have climbed in three of the past four weeks, heightening concerns that the weak job market may not improve anytime soon. The latest jobs report "represents...

Given the recent announcement that the government's measure of unemployment has hit 10.2 percent, and given that the official House version of Obama's healthcare plan, HR 3962, has now passed, a close examination of the effects of "Obamacare" on the labor market is important. It will be no surprise to readers of this site to learn that the Democrats' bill will seriously harm precisely those poor and uninsured citizens it is ostensibly designed to help. The harm will come by compounding mass unemployment and depriving these citizens of consumption choices. Obamacare as Labor Tax According to pages 269–273 of the...

As we approach Jan. 22, we are again reminded of and deeply saddened by the abortion holocaust in America. Since Roe vs. Wade, Jan. 22, 1973, more than 48 million unborn children have been killed by abortion in the United States. Nearly 100 years ago, Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, and Rodger Baldwin, founder of the American Civil Liberties Union, began careful planning to lay the legal groundwork to bring about abortion on demand. Sanger stated in her publication, "The Woman Rebel" (vol. 1, No. 1, 1914), "Our objective is unlimited sexual gratification without the burden of unwanted children....

In Demand and in Command The Job Market's Latest Seesaw Pays Off for Applicants By Neil Irwin Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, May 5, 2006; D01 American workers are regaining something they've lacked for five years: the upper hand in negotiations with their employers. Through the last recession and much of the ensuing recovery, there were more workers looking for jobs than employers looking to hire them. As a result, wages grew more slowly than prices. That dynamic seems to be changing, according to a range of economic data. "The war for talent is back on," said Gregory Netland, chief...

Last year was a record for the nation's home building industry . The Commerce Department reported Thursday that construction of single-family homes and apartments totaled 2.065 million units last year. The increase of 5.6 percent over 2004 pushed overall residential construction to the second highest level on record, exceeded only by 2.357 million units built in 1972. Meanwhile, single-family home construction hit an all-time high for the third straight year, rising to 1.714 million units, up 6.4 percent from the previous record of 1.611 million homes built in 2004. The record-setting performance came despite the fact that housing activity dropped...