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The U.S. services sector picked up speed in April, according to the Institute for Supply Management, with growth broadening across key components of the economy’s largest segment. The Services PMI rose to 51.6 percent last month, up from 50.8 percent in March and beating expectations for a modest dip. The increase marks a reversal from the prior month’s slowdown and suggests the sector may be reaccelerating heading into the second quarter. Three of the four major subindexes that feed directly into the headline PMI improved in April, with increases in new orders, supplier deliveries, and employment. Only the business activity...

During an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent insisted President Donald Trump’s economic plan would be a net benefit to the U.S. economy. Among the positive impacts he offered were reindustrialization, a revitalized private sector and higher wages. Transcript as follows: WELKER: It’s great to have you back after a very big week. Let’s start with the market reaction to President Trump’s announcement of his tariffs. As I just laid out at the top of the program, the markets lost more than $6 trillion in value. Was this disruption always part of the plan,...

When it comes to trading and investing, elections don’t just elect leaders…They ignite or douse market trends.That’s why Wall Street wasn’t just watching the presidential election… It was bracing for what could be another seismic shift.The last time Trump rode to victory in 2016, markets trembled, then soared. That election night saw Dow futures plunge 800 points as traders caught their breath, only to witness a reversal that kicked off a remarkable bull run. The Dow soared 56% through 2019.Now, with Trump set to begin his second term, smart money is positioning for what could be another wild ride.The Deregulation...

Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents apprehended approximately 11,000 migrants during the past week, according to the sector chief. Unofficial Border Patrol reports reviewed by Breitbart Texas reveal the apprehension of approximately 40,000 migrants so far this month. Tucson Sector Chief Patrol Agent John Modlin posted a report on X indicating his agents apprehended approximately 11,000 migrants during the past week. One of those migrants was a convicted rapist who was deported after a conviction in the state of Washington.

The Illinois Supreme Court struck down the state’s 2013 pension overhaul, unraveling an effort by lawmakers to rein in benefits for the consistently underfunded public-sector system. The current pension shortfall is estimated at $111 billion, one of the largest nationally. The high court affirmed a decision in November by a state circuit court that the legislative changes violated pension protections written into the state constitution. The decision is a victory for a consortium of public-sector unions while creating a huge challenge for new Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner, who already faces a yawning budget deficit for the coming fiscal year.

History suggests that previously sound assumptions about financial security and recession-proof sectors may not apply in the next recession. Nobody wants to lose their job in a recession, but that's what happens when credit tightens, profits fall and tax revenues decline. Every enterprise that can't borrow unlimited sums of money at near-zero interest rates has to cut costs, and since labor and labor overhead (pension contributions, healthcare insurance, etc.) are the biggest expense for the vast majority of enterprises (including government agencies), payroll must be trimmed one way or another: either by lay-offs or by attrition, i.e. not hiring replacements for...

U.S. private-sector employers added 118,000 jobs in November shy of economists' expectations, a report by a payrolls processor showed on Wednesday. Economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast the ADP National Employment Report would show a gain of 125,000 jobs. October's private payrolls were revised slightly down to an increase of 157,000 f rom the previously reported 158,000.

The retail sector reports that sales for June, for stores open at least one year, gained an anemic 0.1%, the slowest rise since August 2009. This was the third month in a row of significant weakness in the retail sector! When compared to the 6.7% rise in sales in the same period last year for the retail sector, this 0.1% rise in retail sales from last month reveals how weak consumer spending in this supposed economic recovery is. Remember, dear reader: 70% of gross domestic product (GDP) is composed of consumer spending. The retail sector uses this measure—stores open at...

The private sector added just 84,000 jobs in June, a big miss from some projections that had it topping 100,000 for the month. More than 25,000 of those jobs came in temporary "help services" positions. Overall, private-sector hiring is down both sequentially and from the year-ago period. Last month, the private sector added 105,000 positions, including revisions upward this month. And in June 2011, the private sector added 102,000 jobs. The staggering temporary hiring represents both good and bad in the report. On one hand, the temporary health services industry added almost 33,000 more jobs compared with June 2011. It's...

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Despite recent layoffs, teachers still have greater job security than workers in private businesses. While employment in education declined by 2.9% between September 2008 and July 2011, according to BLS data, overall private-sector employment declined by 4.4%. Moreover, from 2005 through 2010 the unemployment rate for public school teachers averaged 2.1%, versus 4.1% for private school teachers and 3.8% for occupations that some consider comparable, such as computer programmers and insurance underwriters.

Daytona Beach, Florida – With a major referendum on public sector unions Tuesday in Ohio, three of the four candidates appearing in the Florida Tea Party Convention Debate Sunday indicated that the very existence of public sector unions is a flawed system that should be ended while the fourth, front runner Herman Cain, said a Cain Presidency would not cater to the union minority over the non union majority. The union question was posed by moderator C. Edmund Wright, an American Thinker columnist and tea party speaker who has written and spoken extensively on government union problems. Former Senator Rick...

‘It’s very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine; it’s the public-sector jobs where we’ve lost huge numbers, and that’s what this legislation is all about,” Democratic Senate majority leader Harry Reid claimed last week. Senator Reid is simply wrong: The private sector has suffered from much deeper job cuts than public-sector workers have faced. Obviously, Americans are hurting, with some 7 million losing their jobs since the start of the recession. And that doesn’t include the 7.2 million people who should have entered the work force over the same time period. But the pain hasn’t been in...

Politics: A week ago, as the secretary of labor greeted grim job data by hailing the economy's "turnaround," the Dow fell 100 points in seconds — a vivid sign America is wising up to this administration's incompetence. Only minutes after her department reported that payrolls had shed another 131,000 positions in July, there was Secretary Hilda Solis speaking brazenly of the "strong and immediate action" the White House had taken to save or create "more than 2.5 million American jobs." But as the market action showed, investors could see she didn't know what she was talking about. But then, Solis...

After years of declining tax revenues, cities and towns across the country are now running out of ways to deal with their ballooning budget deficits. ... Public employee costs account for a large share of municipal budget woes.

With peas, acrobatics, sports and writing being the main topics at today's press conference, you may have missed a key moment when President Obama announced the stimulus was a success. And this wasn't just his opinion; there is evidence too! "Without relitigating the past, I’m absolutely convinced, and the vast majority of economists are convinced, that the steps we took in the Recovery Act saved millions of people their jobs or created a whole bunch of jobs," President Obama said at his presser on Monday morning.

RUSH: Minnesota state government is closed. The Minnesota state government shut down at midnight last night, the victim "of an ongoing dispute over taxes and spending between Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton and Republican legislative majorities. Talks fell apart well before the deadline, leaving state parks closed on the brink of the Fourth of July weekend." Oh, the tears. You see how this works? Evil Republicans, state parks are closed, the little kiddies don't get to have their snow cones and the sleigh rides, oh, no, no Fourth of July, evil Republicans. The AP says that the shutdown in Minnesota puts...

RUSH: We have the unemployment news that we are now at 9.1% unemployment. We have next to no growth. We have massive unemployment. We're in the midst of a housing disaster, oppressive regulations. All of this and the regime is demanding massive tax increases. We face a threat of reduction in the nation's credit rating. We have systemic, historic deficits and still today you can read certain stories or go to certain networks and hear them talk about the recovery! There is no recovery. If this isn't a depression, then what is? And the sad thing is, what's even worse,...

Madison — The head of the largest state workers union said Friday that his group is willing to give in to Gov. Scott Walker's demand for concessions on their benefits if the governor gives up his bid to repeal nearly all bargaining rights for public worker unions. Marty Beil, head of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, which represents some 23,000 blue-collar state workers, said his group would agree to pay more of their pension contributions and health insurance benefits. "We are prepared to implement the financial concessions proposed to help bring our state's budget into balance, but we will not...

Following Friday’s report that only 67,000 new jobs were created in the private sector in August, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Chief Economist, Dr. Martin Regalia, issued the following statement: “The employment data released today shows another month of anemic job growth in the private sector and an outright decline in the total number of jobs. “While this data was better than expected, it is a sad day when such a dismal number exceeds our expectations. “Once again, these numbers are confirmation that the economy is not growing sufficiently and it is far past time for the administration and Congress...