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Sorry for the vanity here, but I have Googled and looked until my eyes are bloodshot and can find no information on whether June's jobs numbers were revised down on Friday. I'm guessing since it's not being reported anywhere that in fact they were. This is the usual pattern with Obama and his organ grinder monkeys in the media---report job creation, then quietly and with no fanfare downgrade the number the following month with the willing complicity of the media keeping the whole thing quiet. Anyway, if anyone knows if the jobs numbers were bumped up, down or unchanged for...

WASHINGTON - A "new normal" is emerging for the U.S. jobs market, and a growing number of economists warn that it's likely to mean that unemployment will remain persistently high, at 7 percent or more, for years to come. The 9.1 percent unemployment rate reported in May remains high by post-World War II standards long after the economy resumed growth following the worst recession in 70 years. It's prompting economists to rethink basic assumptions about the U.S. labor market.

Men are disappearing from the workplace in ways that don't always register on the official unemployment rate The March jobs report released on Apr. 1 seemed like the best in years. Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis released a statement noting that the four-month drop in the jobless rate, to 8.8 percent from 9.8 percent, was "its largest decline since 1984." Behind the headlines, though, statistics on jobs are far less encouraging. Yes, job growth has picked up somewhat. Yet an equally important reason for the lower jobless rate is that many people, men in particular, have simply given up looking...

PROBLEME WIE IN EUROPA Die Konsequenzen sind fatal. Denn je länger die Arbeitslosen ohne Job sind, desto stärker entwertet sich ihre Qualifikation. Das spüren selbst gut ausgebildete Arbeitskräfte wie Lawrence Cannon aus Byram in Mississippi. Der 48-jährige Ingenieur mit Erfahrungen im Straßenbau und Ölbohrgeschäft verlor seinen Job bei einem Bauunternehmen vor einem Jahr. Nun jobbt er bei Wal-Mart und in einem Fitnesscenter, um sich, seine Frau und seine vier Kinder mit Mindestlöhnen über die Runden zu bringen. „Mein Einkommen hat sich von 65 000 Dollar pro Jahr auf 20 000 reduziert“, klagt Cannon. Er hat sich sogar bei Firmen beworben,...

This is the death of the American Dream. Near 10% joblessness and no hope or change, propaganda can rescue this economy. President Barry Hussein Suitor and Vice President Joe Biden announced this as the Summer of Economic Recovery; instead, millions of Americans have been out of work for more than 99 weeks and counting. They know we all know this is the end of American Exceptionalism; this is the end of the American middle class, as we know it. (see story) Andrew Klavan gives a unique informative and comparatively witty look at president Soetoro’s Summer of Economic Recovery and the...

An Obama supporter who has a temp gig at my office has asked me to put in a good word for them (gender-neutral reference) toward a more permanent position. What to do, what to do?

As a logical consequence of the prolonged economic downturn it appears that participation in the federal food stamp program is continuing to rise. In fact, household participation has been climbing so steadily that it has far surpassed the last peak set as a result of the immediate fallout following hurricane Katrina. The latest data released by the Department of Agriculture shows that, on a year-over-year basis, household participation has increased 21.28% while individual participation, as a ratio of the overall population, has increased 17.55% over the same period

At President Obama's insistence, Senate Democrats today are expected to almost quadruple the amount of time out-of-work Americans can receive unemployment insurance benefits -- adding yet another $34 billion to this year's incomprehensible $1.4 trillion budget deficit. Jobless Americans will be grateful for the cash -- hence the plan's popularity on Capitol Hill -- but their long-term prospects won't be helped very much by the bill. Neither will the economy. The bill OKs more federal borrowing to pay for extended jobless benefits. The federal-state unemployment program, introduced in the 1930s, allows workers who lose their jobs to apply for weekly...

Billy Raye, a 51-year-old unemployed bike courier, is looking for work. Fortunately for him, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Council of Carpenters is seeking paid demonstrators to march and chant in its current picket line outside the McPherson Building, an office complex here where the council says work is being done with nonunion labor. the union hires unemployed people at the minimum wage—$8.25 an hour—to walk picket lines. Mr. Raye says he's grateful for the work, even though he's not sure why he's doing it. "I could care less," he says. "I am being paid to march around and sound off." Protest...

GRAFTON, Mass. — After breakfast, his parents left for their jobs, and Scott Nicholson, alone in the house in this comfortable suburb west of Boston, went to his laptop in the living room. He had placed it on a small table that his mother had used for a vase of flowers until her unemployed son found himself reluctantly stuck at home. The daily routine seldom varied. Mr. Nicholson, 24, a graduate of Colgate University, winner of a dean’s award for academic excellence, spent his mornings searching corporate Web sites for suitable job openings. When he found one, he mailed off...

THE PRESIDENT: All right. Good morning, everybody. On what seems like a daily basis, we're barraged with statistics and forecasts and reports and data related to the health of the economy. But from the first days of this administration, amidst the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, I've said that the truest measure of progress would be whether or not we were creating jobs. That's what matters in people's lives. What matters is whether someone who needs a job can find work -- whether people can provide for their families and save for the future and achieve some measure...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The number of U.S. workers filing new applications for unemployment insurance fell slightly less than expected last week, government data showed on Thursday, implying only a gradual labor market improvement. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits dropped 11,000 to a seasonally adjusted 448,000 in the week ended April 24, the Labor Department said. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected claims to fall to 445,000 from the previously reported 456,000, which was modestly revised up to 459,000 in Thursday's report. The four-week moving average of new claims, which irons out week-to-week volatility, rose 1,500 to 462,500, increasing for a...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of U.S. workers filing new claims for jobless aid soared last week as the backlog from the Easter holiday was processed, adding to worries about the recovery, while U.S. industrial output rose less than expected in March. Initial claims for state unemployment benefits rose 24,000 -- the largest increase in two months -- to a seasonally adjusted 484,000, the Labor Department said on Thursday. Markets had expected a dip to 440,000. "Everything on the manufacturing side is clearly pointing to an acceleration," said Phil Orlando, chief equity market strategist at Federated Investors in New York....

The Feds have lied to us again. Figures released by the federal government concerning the December jobless rate carefully hid the truth from the public. The U.S. labor force shrank by 661,000--the worst since this current Great Recession began. Interestingly, once again it took a newspaper in the U.K. to give Americans the truth. The Telegraph of the U.K. presented the following headline: 'America slides deeper into depression as Wall Street revels; December was the worst month for U.S. unemployment since the Great Recession began.' Newspapers, television network news programs, and other media in the United States, however, parroted the...

Al Hunt writes a column that reveals the typical finger-pointing and backbiting that ensues when things are not going all that well in an administration. First, he relates this episode: "On Dec. 2, as Obama prepared to give a major economic speech at the Brookings Institution on Dec. 8 (and a day after his Afghanistan speech at West Point) he met with policy makers. He heard a familiar reprise of the previous several meetings with budget director Peter Orszag arguing for more emphasis on reducing the deficit and Council of Economic Advisers chief Christina Romer leading the contingent espousing a...

With the front line of defense for unemployed Americans crumbling, the jobless are facing potentially reduced benefits and businesses possibly higher taxes. With the front line of defense for unemployed Americans crumbling, the jobless are facing potentially reduced benefits, and businesses -- possibly higher taxes. So far, 25 states, including California, New York, Texas and Michigan, have run out of unemployment insurance money and have borrowed $24 billion from the federal government -- loans that are interest free. By 2011, 15 more states will have exhausted their jobless trust funds and need $90 billion in loans to keep handing...

If you still have a job, maybe Friday's numbers from the Labor Department will give you a chance to exhale. Since the recession began in December 2007, the employment market, for the most part, has been one negative headline after another. Now, we've learned that the U.S. lost only 11,000 jobs in November, that the unemployment rate surprisingly ticked down from 10.2% the previous month to only 10%, and that for the prior two months the total of jobs lost actually wasn't as bad as initially thought. The last time the data were so bright, if they can be called...

As many families gather for this splendid holiday feast, there are too many others who in the year suffer the American equivalent of hunger. This is more like deprivation and thankfully not the clinical malnutrition and starvation it is in the Third World. At the same time, this super-rich nation is also battling what is described as an epidemic of overweight and obesity. Obesity, according to the experts, is mushrooming faster than any other health problem. If not slowed down, it will exact $344 billion in health care costs in 2018. By that time 43 percent of Americans, or 103...

Labor Day has changed dramatically. Massive marches in Detroit, Pittsburgh and New York City on this day once marked the power of organized labor. This year, union members will be marching in much smaller parades and enjoying slimmed- down picnics. Some parades and picnics have been canceled. Those are signs of the times. Here are a few more: More than 9.1 million Americans — union and nonunion alike — are categorized by the Labor Department as involuntary part-time workers. They're the lucky ones. They still have a job but are working fewer hours each week. Their reduced paychecks reflect that...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. employers cut 539,000 jobs last month, the fewest since October, according to government data on Friday that signaled the economy's steep decline may be easing. The unemployment rate, however, soared to 8.9 percent, the highest since September 1983, from 8.5 percent in March and job losses in March and February were a combined 66,000 steeper than previously estimated, the Labor Department said. A big 72,000 jump in government payrolls tempered the overall job-loss figure. Private sector employment fell by 611,000 in April after a 693,000 job decline in March.