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WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The productivity of U.S. businesses rose at a slower rate in the first quarter while hourly wages of workers adjusted for inflation fell by the largest amount in almost three years, according to government data. First-quarter productivity rose at a 1.6% annual rate, the Labor Department said Thursday. Productivity in the fourth quarter was also revised up to 2.9% from 2.6%. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected productivity to increase by 1.5% in the first quarter... ...Although compensation per hour rose 2.6% at an annualized rate, hourly wages adjusted for inflation fell by 2.5%. That’s the biggest...

Season's greetings. And while I'm on the subject, this is a good time for us "haves" to start thinking more about America's "have nots." The national unemployment rate stands at a horrifying 9.8%. But unemployment is 15.7% among high-school dropouts, and an astonishing 42% of all unemployed workers have been jobless for more than six months. At press time, Congress appeared poised to pass a package of tax cuts that offers 19% of its benefits to the richest 1% of taxpayers. Earlier this month, the president's deficit commission proposed a comprehensive deficit-reduction plan with many virtues. But it included, among...

Goods-producing industries could achieve high productivity growth as labor-saving automation and supply-chain efficiencies scaled up. But jobs in nursing and teaching required the same number of person-hours with patients or students as they did in years past. In other words, labor-intensive services had far lower rates of productivity growth than did goods-producing industries. And yet salary increases in those service sectors -- education, health care, government, to name a few -- keep pace with those in industries where raises are justified by greater productivity. This difference has a consequence that few had noticed before: As gross domestic product rises due...

In the four months between June and October, retail sales surged 10.2% at an annual rate and are up 7.3% over the past 12 months. Still, consumers get no respect from the majority of analysts and economists, who during the summer and early fall, could not stop talking about a double-dip recession. But instead of going wobbly, consumers seem to be standing strong. ComScore ( SCOR - news - people ) says online sales vs. last year were up 28% on Thanksgiving Day, 9% on Black Friday and 13% so far in November. Coremetrics, another online data gatherer, reports sales...

Here's my sin: I'm trying to find some grounds for optimism. Achilles2000 (and others) say, forget it: "The only thing in the middle of the road is road kill ;-) For those who care about America and liberty, there is exactly one right answer - education by government must end." I don't say this is wrong, just that I don't think anything so drastic will actually happen. Conservatives might take over Congress. This is no time to assume the worst. Meanwhile, the main thing I'm struck by as I read comments on many sites is that the average American doesn't...

Ron Bullock, chairman of Bison Gear & Engineering Corp, writing in the Washington Examiner: "More effective foreign competition has led to increasing manufactured-goods trade deficits and the loss of 7 million U.S. manufacturing jobs since 1980." Don Boudreaux responds: "This account – repeated ad nauseam – would be more plausible if it were also the case that U.S. manufacturing output, during this same time, had declined. But this output rose. Manufacturing output today is nearly 100 percent higher than it was 30 years ago (see chart). Importantly, manufacturing output is up while manufacturing employment is down for a reason...

There is no shortage of disastrous behaviors in Obama’s District of Corruption today, but among the most fatal practices is that of refusing to discuss our many challenges in an open, honest and forthright manner. One of the most dangerous patterns in American politics today is the practice of allowing political ambitions to drive the facts, instead of allowing the facts to drive policy decisions. Nowhere is that more evident than in the insane discussion concerning very serious global economic conditions and the right medicine for those international ills.

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/statement-president-national-broadband-plan Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release March 16, 2010 Statement from the President on the National Broadband Plan America today is on the verge of a broadband-driven Internet era that will unleash innovation, create new jobs and industries, provide consumers with new powerful sources of information, enhance American safety and security, and connect communities in ways that strengthen our democracy. Just as past generations of Americans met the great infrastructure challenges of the day, such as building the Transcontinental...

Private sector productivity has soared in the past year, helping to shape the country's rise out of recession. Businesses have pared down their workforces, cut back on nonessential spending, and pushed their workers to do more. Have governments around the country increased their productivity, too, giving taxpayers more for their money? We have little idea, because we put a low priority on measuring public sector costs and output. As a result, we're not in much of a position to say whether our tens of thousands of federal, state and local government units and departments can squeeze more out their workforce...

This Is Why Nobody Has Any Jobs: Productivity Rises Way Ahead Of Expectations Vincent Fernando, CFA May. 6, 2010, 8:32 AM U.S. worker productivity rose 3.6% in Q1, which was well ahead of the 2.4% expected growth. --- Nonfarm business sector labor productivity increased at a 3.6 percent annual rate during the first quarter of 2010, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today, with output rising 4.4 percent and hours worked rising 0.8 percent. (All quarterly percent changes in this release are seasonally adjusted annual rates.) From the first quarter of 2009 to the first quarter of 2010, output...

When workers become more efficient, it's normally a good thing. But lately, it has acted as a powerful brake on job creation. And the question of whether the recent surge in productivity has run its course is the key to whether job growth is finally poised to take off. One of the great surprises of the economic downturn that began 27 months ago is this: Businesses are producing only 3 percent fewer goods and services than they were at the end of 2007, yet Americans are working nearly 10 percent fewer hours because of a mix of layoffs and cutbacks...

This is a parable of Goldilocks and Cinderella. The global Goldilocks growth story had an unhappy ending in October 2007. Today, the recession impoverished Cinderella economy of the US believes it is dancing with the prince. Will midnight chimes bring the bears back? The future growth of US (and, therefore, government revenue) will be severely curtailed by declining competitiveness, costs of medicare, social security and unmanageable deficits. The US government "bail outs" give stock markets confidence, yet the real bailout is strengthening of America's competitiveness. Advances in science and engineering have spearheaded 50 to 80 per cent of US GDP...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of U.S. workers filing for jobless benefits unexpectedly rose last week, but another big gain in productivity in the fourth quarter offered hope that companies were closer to adding to payrolls. Initial claims for state unemployment insurance increased 8,000 to 480,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Financial markets had expected claims to come in at 460,000. While claims are down sharply from their peak last spring, the improvement has stalled in recent weeks. Despite the setback, analysts are optimistic hiring will pick up soon as firms run out of ways to boost output without...

Our Current Economic Illusions Daryl Montgomery December 04, 2009 When reading economic statistics, you should see if they are consistent (they rarely are) and make sense based on real world observations (lately they don't). On Thursday, December 3rd the U.S. productivity numbers were released, as were same store sales and weekly unemployment claims. The stories these three pieces of data are telling are quite different, which means at least one and possibly two of them are not correct. Productivity in the U.S. is supposedly up astronomically. It rose by 8.1% last quarter and this is after being revised down from...

WASHINGTON — Productivity surged in the third quarter by the largest amount in six years while labor costs fell. While that indicates inflation is remaining under control, it also signals that workers' wages are getting squeezed, raising doubts about the durability of the economic recovery. The Labor Department said Thursday productivity was rising at an annual rate of 8.1 percent in July-September period, the biggest jump since 2003, while unit labor costs were falling at a 2.5 percent rate. The productivity gain was revised down from an initial estimate of 9.5 percent made a month ago while the drop in...

Rising productivity is usually one of the best things you can hope for in an economy. It means people are producing more for each hour they work. That's the path to higher living standards. But the huge burst in productivity that the U.S. economy experienced in the third quarter is not entirely good. In fact, it's a sign that the U.S. economy is still in a sickly condition—a conclusion that is likely to be driven home by the latest job-loss figures release on Nov. 6. Economists who cheered the productivity number are ignoring the dark side of its sudden growth....

Jobless Claims Down, Productivity Soars! Joe WeisenthalNov. 5, 2009, 8:33 AM At first blush, we like this morning's economic numbers. New jobless claims of 512,000 was lower than the 530,000 last week, and the 525,000 analysts had anticipated.[snip]

...In "The Graduate"...Dustin Hoffman's Benjamin is given a one-word bit of career counseling by one of those shallow and corrupt grown-ups at a shallow and corrupt grown-up cocktail party: "Plastics." Forty-two years later, the line has picked up a meaning that the makers of "The Graduate" could not possibly have anticipated.. today, the reaction is, "Oh, right: America still made things then." We don't any more...Since 1987, manufacturing as a share of our gross domestic product has declined 30 percent. Once the world's leading net exporter, we have become the world's leading net importer. In 2007, we exported $1.2 trillion...

Showering during the working day helps employees become more productive and more creative, according to a new study. Four businesses - a restaurant, an architect firm, an advertising agency and a lingerie company - took part in the eight-week study, conducted by PR firm Lucre. Staff took a shower break in addition to their usual daily wash - and results showed improvement across a range of areas, from mood to productivity. Employees taking shower breaks at the four businesses - ad agency Home, in Leeds, restaurant The Chancery, in London, architects and designers 3s, in London, and Simone Perele UK,...

"No matter how much money is spent, literacy rates plunge and SAT scores fall. General knowledge throughout the society becomes more scant. Our better students can’t compete against better foreign students. The depressing statistics are all around us. Everyone admits the public schools are doing a lousy job. The question is, why can't we do more to improve them?"