Two bad pieces of news in the otherwise tepid jobs report.
1. The broad unemployment rate rose 0.4 percentage points. The unemployment rate remained at 9.6 percent in September, but the U-6 rate, a broader measure of unemployment and underemployment, jumped to 17.1 percent. That is the highest rate More…
Private employers added just 1,420 jobs per state in July — not nearly enough to make up for job losses in the government, 50,000 of which were local-government layoffs. Unemployment remains high, at 9.5 percent, and many economists expect it to track higher in the fall. Calculated Risk More…
This morning, the Commerce Department said that the U.S. economy expanded at a 2.4 percent annual rate in the second quarter — about what economists expected. That rate is down from a 3.7 percent annual rate in the first quarter
Nonresidential fixed investment drove growth, increasing at a 17 More…
A striking new study from the Pew Research Center shows that more than half of Americans — 55 percent, to be exact — have suffered a layoff, had their hours reduced or been forced to work part time during the recession.
Today, Gallup released a weekly survey of consumer spending — a good metric to keep an eye on, as it accounts for around 60 percent of the U.S. economy. Consumer spending had made gains last month, as high-income Americans returned to malls and restaurants. But more recent More…
Economy cheerleaders erupted today at the news that only 36,000 Americans lost their jobs in February, as compared to the 50,000 American jobs expected to be sacrificed to the Snowpocalypse gods. Of course, that means 15 million Americans remain unemployed, and 40 percent of those people More…
Anyone who has ever been unemployed or “underemployed” (working part-time or freelancing when one needs full-time work) knows that it’s quite easy to get down about your employment prospects. But just in case you thought the 20 percent of Americans who are among the ranks of the un- More…
While the steady rise of the nation’s unemployment rate has become shorthand for the recession’s impact, many economists say the grim figures — 8.9 percent in April — don’t tell the whole story of Americans’ financial distress. While the plight of the jobless tends to dominate social policy conversations and More…
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