Tag Archives: Labor Department

business news, national news, political news

Silence on job growth is quite telling

That silence you hear from the Republican side of the political divide is quite instructive as the nation digests the latest job-growth numbers.

The Labor Department today reported that 248,000 jobs were added in September and that the jobless rate fell to less than 6 percent for the first time since 2008.

No cheers. No backslapping. No “congrats, you guys” are coming from the GOP gang.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/september-2014-unemployment-numbers-111583.html?hp=l1

Indeed, this morning — just before the jobs figures came out — Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary during the George W. Bush administration, disputed President Obama’s claim the other day that we’re better off now than when he took office in January 2009. Fleischer told Joe Scarborough on “Morning Joe” that Obama inherited a “100-foot hole” but still has a “95-foot hole” from which the country must emerge.

What utter bunk!

The economy is growing. Every independent analyst I’ve read suggests the nation has turned the corner from where we were six years ago.

Of course, the task now is to keep marching forward and to keep the momentum going.

Today’s job numbers suggest we’re continuing to make progress.

I get that politics requires muzzles when the “other side” has good news to report. That’s the way the game is played. Democrats do it, too, when the news involved a Republican administration.

Rest assured that if the next job report isn’t as glowing as this one, the loyal opposition will awaken quickly from its silent slumber.

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Time for economic shouting match

The economic naysayers keep winning the shouting match over the state of the economy.

I choose to listen a bit more intently to the other side, the folks who proclaim the nation’s economy is doing better than what many Americans think.

http://money.msn.com/business-news/article.aspx?feed=OBR&date=20140606&id=17680783

The latest job numbers provide reason for the positive thinkers to begin outshouting the other side.

The U.S. Labor Department announced Friday the economy added 217,000 jobs in May. Unemployment held steady at 6.3 percent; there used to be a time when that would be seen as “bad news,” but in this era it’s seen as an indication that more people are re-entering the job-search market, that hope is returning.

The May jobs boost comes after an April jobs increase that was even greater.

Why, then, do the goofballs who want the current administration’s economic policies to fail keep winning the argument?

My own guess is that they’re better at shouting over the opposition than, well, their opposition. Just maybe it’s time for those of us who do not share the Gloomy Gus outlook to begin shouting with a bit more fervor about the accomplishments that have occurred during the past six years.

I’ve tried to make the point on occasion from my own platform. It’s not getting much run out there. Surely there are others like myself who believe in a bit more optimistic future than the other side.

So, to whatever extent I can motivate the masses who share that view, I’m going to shout it out once more from this perch.

The U.S. economy is in recovery mode! We’ve gained back all the jobs we lost during the Great Recession of 2008-09! It ain’t perfect, but then again, when is it ever perfect?

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Jobs numbers may help insurance fight

December’s disappointing jobs report may have a beneficial consequence for a lingering political fight.

The White House is bickering — nothing new there — with congressional Republicans over whether to extend unemployment benefits for long-term jobless Americans for another three months.

The Labor Department then released figures Friday that showed job growth crept up by just 74,000 in the past month, far below what economists had predicted. The White House thinks extending the insurance for long-term unemployed is the decent thing to do in an economic environment that is still struggling to gain completely firm footing.

http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/december-2013-jobs-report-white-house-response-102020.html?hp=l16

Meanwhile, GOP lawmakers keep insisting on government budget cuts to pay for the insurance extension.

White House officials shrugged at the disappointing numbers, but say any refusal to help unemployed Americans is going to damage the recovery, which they insist is occurring.

It’s hard to dispute the trend over the past two years that job growth has returned and that the economy is recovering from the worst recession in many Americans’ memory.

Congress ought to do the right thing by those seeking work by lending a hand where it is needed. Those paltry jobs numbers suggest the recovery still needs a boost.

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Economy takes a hit … or does it?

Economics question of the day: When does a drop in the unemployment rate mean bad news?

When the drop is caused by people giving up on their search for jobs.

So it is that the Labor Department today reported that the jobless rate fell to 6.7 percent, the lowest rate since 2008, but the economy added only 74,000 jobs in December, which is far below economists’ prediction.

Is it time to push the panic button? Time to throw in the towel? Time to storm the White House with torches and pitchforks?

No to all of the above.

As my financial adviser keeps telling my wife and me: Take the long view.

The nation added 2.2 million jobs in 2013, which is about what it added in each of the previous two years. The labor market isn’t great. As one economist said on NPR this morning, it’s gone from being “terrible to just plain bad.”

I’m not going to join the amen chorus of critics who keep insisting the economy is in the tank.

We’ve recovered all the jobs lost during the great recession of late 2008 and early 2009; manufacturing is up; the budget deficit is down, as is the trade deficit; domestic energy exploration is way up, as evidenced by all those pump jacks working furiously along the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles.

Let’s just wait for next month’s job figures … and maybe the month after that.

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Economy gives GOP reason to cheer Obama policies

I can sense it, sort of.

The Labor Department said today the economy created 203,000 jobs in October. The jobless rate fell to 7 percent, the lowest level in five years. The jobs report provided the first “clean” look at the state of the economy, according to Politico.com, meaning a report that wasn’t shaded by the government shutdown and other external political factors.

And … the Federal Reserve Board just might start dialing back its stimulus efforts with the realization that the economy is finally — finally! — gaining some actual strength.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/12/november-2013-unemployment-numbers-100780.html

What am I sensing? The Republican leadership in Congress might be willing to give President Obama a little bit of credit for what appears to be a full-blown economic recovery.

I say “might be willing.” Whether it happens is anyone’s guess.

Perhaps the most encouraging element of this report, if you’re a Republican, is that the Fed might start drawing back on the bond-buying program it had instituted to help jump-start the economy. This government “intrusion” is anathema to congressional Republicans. It well might be that the Fed has seen enough improvement in the economy — which includes significant strength in the private sector — that it no longer has to pump billions of dollars to keep the economic engines running.

The stock market gets jittery at that kind of news. Still, the market took off like a rocket today when the jobs figures came out. It helped yours truly’s retirement account immensely, for which I am grateful.

The president cannot get a break these days, what with the Affordable Care Act rollout being the disaster it has become. That problem appears fixed, too.

Remember when the economy was Issue No. 1 in the GOP’s plan to defeat President Obama’s attempt at re-election? It didn’t work. Voter returned him to office for another four years.

Today’s jobs report seems to suggest that’s why virtually no one is talking smack about the economy these days.

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Jobs numbers ‘bad’? Not really

I was preparing myself this morning for a terrible jobs report from the U.S. Department of Labor.

It didn’t arrive. What we got instead was a tally of 148,000 jobs created in September, with unemployment falling to 7.2 percent, the lowest it’s been since November 2008.

http://money.cnn.com/2013/10/22/news/economy/september-jobs-report/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Are those figures great? No. Are they dismal? No.

I don’t quite know how to describe them. The political hounds on either side will spin it in their direction. Democrats will say the fight over whether to shut down the government hampered hiring. Republicans will say the shutdown didn’t have that much of an effect. Democrats will say 148,000 jobs added means more Americans are working than the previous month. Republicans will say the economy is still too sluggish to be described as being in “recovery” mode.

Hanging over all this is that 16-day shutdown, which delayed the release of the government figures. Maybe we need to wait for the October jobs report to determine what impact the shutdown had, if any.

I’m getting the sense that the mood in Washington is casting a pall over everything these days. Americans are angry at Congress and the White House. Although polling — the scientific kind, not those instant media polls that tell us nothing — tells us Republicans are taking the major body blows as a result of the shutdown and the debt ceiling “crisis.”

That’s the bad news. You want worse news?

The 2014 midterm elections are just around the corner. Get ready for even more politicization.

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Jobs are up; jobless rate down … still no love

The U.S. Labor Department today reported 162,000 jobs were added to the nation’s payrolls in July, while the jobless rate fell to 7.4 percent, the lowest in nearly five years.

But still, despite that, the news is being received with a shrug and a “so what?” even from those who detest President Obama and his economic policies.

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2013/08/02/jobs-report-july/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fortunefinance+%28Fortune+Finance%3A+Hedge+Funds%2C+Markets%2C+Mergers+%26+Acquisitions%2C+Private+Equity%2C+Venture+Capital%2C+Wall+Street%2C+Washington%29&utm_content=Google+UK

It honestly puzzles me. Then again, I don’t get paid to analyze this data. I’m watching all this unfold from the peanut gallery, like most Americans – and that includes the TV talk show chatterboxes who purport to be the know-it-alls of everything that’s supposed to matter.

This administration took office with the nation in free fall. We were losing – depending on who’s counting – 700,000 to 800,000 jobs each month. Banks were crashing. Housing markets all across the country were cratering. A member of my family – a well-educated architect – personified the agony of what happened when he lost his job as the housing market disintegrated all along the West Coast.

What’s happened since then? The government added rules that added accountability to lenders who were loaning money to people who couldn’t repay their loans. Rules for banks were tightened. The government pumped money into state and local economies – such as Texas and Amarillo, where officials were more than happy to take it. Jobs have been added at a slow, but reasonably steady rate.

Is the economy growing fast enough? No. Considering where we were at the start of 2009 and where we’ve gone since then, though, I’d rate the policies a success.

Yes, some individuals disagree with that. Let ‘em disagree. I’ll stand by what I’ve witnessed from the cheap seats.

Oh, and my family member who lost job in 2009? He’s back to work … as an architect.