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<p>The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose less than expected last week, pointing to some underlying strength in the labor market.</p> <p>Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 5,000 to a seasonally adjusted 320,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Claims for the week ended March 8 were unrevised.</p>

So far in 2014, initial unemployment claims have been largely stuck, though we were supposed to see some progress this morning. According to the new figures from the Labor Department, we didn’t: The number of people who applied for U.S. unemployment benefits jumped by 14,000 to 348,000 last week to match a five-week high, the Labor Department said Thursday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected claims to total 335,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis. The average of new claims over the past month, a more reliable gauge than the volatile weekly number, was unchanged at 338,250.

Yes, I suppose it’s true that most of the rest of the world works a lot less than Americans do. Their GDPs-per-capita and/or their debt-to-GDP ratios generally tend to correlate accordingly, but whatever. Via RCP:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO What the Congressional Budget Office is saying is that we’re going to discourage kids having to have latchkeys. We’re going to have parents being able to come home, working reasonable hours. People are going to be able to retire. People might be able to actually cook dinner rather than have to order out and get some takeout. I mean, the...

1,154,000 fewer Americans are working today than six years ago, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In January 2008, 146,378,000 Americans 16 and over were employed, and now in January 2014, 145,224,000 are employed, a difference of 1,154,000.

<p>U.S. equity markets zipped higher Friday after a round of weak jobs data inspired hopes the Fed may take more time to boost rates and cut its bond-purchasing program.</p> <p>As of 9:32 a.m. ET, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 53.3 points, or 0.35%, to 15675, the S&P 500 gained 8.5 points, or 0.48%, to 1783 and the Nasdaq Composite advanced 28.4 points, or 0.69%, to 4084.</p>

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell more than expected last week, in a boost to the labor market outlook and the broader economy. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits declined 20,000 to a seasonally adjusted 331,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Claims for the prior week were revised to show 3,000 more applications received than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast first-time applications for jobless benefits falling to 335,000 in the week ended Feb. 1. The four-week moving average for new claims, considered a better measure of underlying labor market conditions as...

Democrats are increasingly employing a new tack in the battle over a projected reduction of two million jobs due to Obamacare, saying the decline is actually the result of people not being required to work anymore when they don't want to -- a concept labeled "job lock.""Yesterday, the CBO projected that by 2021 the Affordable Care Act will enable more than 2 million workers to escape 'job-lock' – the situation where workers remain tied to employers for access to health insurance benefits," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) office said in a news release.The release continued: "In addition to being...

(CNN) -- The White House has secured commitments from some of the nation's largest companies for a plan to boost hiring of the long-term unemployed. "What we have done is to gather together 300 companies, just to start with, including, some of the top 50 companies in the country, companies like Walmart, and Apple, Ford and others, to say let's establish best practices," President Barack Obama told CNN Chief Washington Correspondent Jake Tapper in an exclusive interview. "Because they've been unemployed ... so long, folks are looking at that gap in the resume and they're weeding them out before these...

The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits rose more than expected last week, but the underlying trend suggested the labor market continued to heal. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 19,000 to a seasonally adjusted 348,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Claims for the prior week were revised to show 3,000 more applications received than previously reported. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast first-time applications for jobless benefits rising to 330,000 in the week ended January 25. The four-week moving average for new claims, considered a better measure of underlying labor market conditions as it...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will announce a new plan next week to help Americans who continue to struggle to find jobs even as the economy recovers from recession, his senior adviser, Dan Pfeiffer, said on Saturday. Obama's efforts to help the long-term unemployed are part of an economic strategy he will lay out in his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday and expound upon during a four-state tour, Pfeiffer said in a mass email from the White House. "With some action on all our parts, we can help more job seekers find work, and more working...

The United Nations’ labor agency says the number of unemployed people around the world rose above 200 million last year as job opportunities failed to grow at the same pace as the global workforce. The International Labor Organization said Monday that an estimated 201.8 million people were unemployed in 2013. That’s 4.9 million more than the previous year. …

Five years in to Barack Obama’s presidency, the number of African-Americans participating in the labor force has hit rock bottom. The news media has ignored this stunning revelation from Friday’s monthly jobs report by the Labor Department. The exception has been PBS, which interviewed economist Dean Baker who had written about it in a report published Friday. “The drop in labor force participation was sharpest for African Americans, who saw a decline of 0.3 percentage points to 60.2 percent, the lowest rate since December of 1977. The rate for African American men fell 0.7 percentage points to 65.6 percent, the...

Month after month, the reports are announced: Job losses outpace job gains, every month. Hundreds of thousands leave the workforce, every month. The new jobs – what few there are – are more likely to be part-time than full-time, and to be lower-paying than the ones lost. Too often, the new jobs are the career-enders, not the career starters that new jobs need to be. The story of the cooked books of the unemployment statistics is old news. For years now, the government reports have been leaving out the “non-participation” rate, so the unemployment percentage today bears no resemblance to...

KING OF PRUSSIA, Pa. — After a 30-year military career in which he earned three graduate degrees, rose to the rank of colonel, and served as an aide to Pentagon brass, Robert Freniere can guess what people might say when they learn he's unemployed and lives out of his van: Why doesn't this guy get a job as a janitor? Freniere answers his own question: "Well, I've tried that." Freniere, 59, says that his plea for help, to a janitor he once praised when the man was mopping the floors of his Washington office, went unfulfilled. So have dozens of...

Legislation to resurrect long-term jobless legislation stalled in the Senate on Thursday, triggering recriminations from both sides of the political aisle despite earlier expressions of optimism that benefits might soon be restored for more than 1 million victims of the recession. Gridlock asserted itself after majority Democrats offered to pay for a 10-month extension of a scaled-back program of benefits—then refused to permit Republicans even to seek any changes.Instead, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republicans of “continually denigrating our economy, our president and frankly, I believe, our country.” …

The noise in the jobless claims data over the past few months has been unprecedented and yet the impressive jump lower in recent weeks has been trumpeted as the all-clear for Tapering and as a signal that the recovery is 'real' this time. Except, thanks to a huge 'glitch' in Florida's new CONNECT unemployment claims website, the data is completely FUBAR... Via The Miami Herald, The story so far... Florida’s ongoing claims for unemployment benefits plummeted to the lowest level in six years from mid-October to early December. The average of 20,000 fewer weekly claims from the prior nine weeks...

If lawmakers decide next month to end a high-stakes impasse over extending long-term unemployment insurance benefits that expired Saturday, an estimated 1.3 million jobless Americans may receive compensation for three additional months or longer. However, in allowing the federal benefits to lapse this weekend -- after extending the support 11 times since the recession of 2008 -- Congress may have severed help to nearly 5 million people by the end of 2014, according to the Obama administration. The battle has become the starter’s pistol of the midterm election year, pitting Democrats’ belief that the benefits are necessary and help buoy...

Extended jobless benefits ran out on Saturday for 1.3 million of the long-term unemployed, and Democrats are looking to make political hay out of the issue.Democrats and some Republicans are working on a three-month extension of benefits that would be the first order of business when Congress returns in January. The bill would add $6 billion to the deficit unless offset by spending cuts elsewhere. The fate of the bill is uncertain in the House. Speaker Boehner hasn’t said he would oppose an extension, but it’s probable that a majority of Republicans would not vote for one unless there were...

The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits rose 68,000 last week to a seasonally adjusted 368,000, the largest increase in more than a year. The surge in first-time applications could be a troubling sign if it lasts. But it likely reflects the difficulty adjusting for delays after the Thanksgiving holiday. Economists will track the next few weeks closely to see if that trend is reversing, or if the surge is a temporary blip caused by seasonal adjustments. The recent drop in layoffs has coincided with a pickup in hiring. The economy has added an average of 204,000 jobs a...

The percentage of American civilians 16 or older who have a job or are actively seeking one dropped to a 35-year low in October, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In September, the labor force participation rate was 63.2 percent, but in October it dropped to 62.8 percent—the lowest it has been since February 1978, when Jimmy Carter was president. The labor force, according to BLS, is that part of the civilian noninstitutional population that either has a job or has actively sought one in the last four weeks. The civilian noninstitutional population consists of people 16 or older,