What Congress Could Do on Jobs, While Hiding Behind Locked Doors
Last week’s headlines touted the new low unemployment rate—8.6 percent, the lowest rate the country has seen since 2009 (rates for black Americans remain twice that). But the unemployment rate doesn’t mean what it used to. In tough times, a lower rate gives a picture of how many people have given up on finding work, not the health of the economy. “While the rate is certainly a very favorable rate, I would highlight that a lot ...
Moody’s says Northern Virginia powerhouse now a liability
ALEXANDRIA — Northern Virginia led the state’s economy through the Great Recession, thanks to a steady stream of jobs from the federal government, but that relationship now could become its Achilles’ heel. On Dec. 7 Moody’s, one of the three leading credit agencies, assigned Virginia and municipalities in Northern Virginia a “negative” outlook in the face of $600 billion in defense cuts and future federal downsizing. “This is the new reality for Virginia,” Moody’s Managing Director Naomi ...
Growth Begets Jobs, Not the Other Way Around
NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Last week's unemployment rate drop gave the economy's bulls and bears alike something to cheer. The bulls pointed to the drop as a clear sign of broad employment improvement. The bears pointed to it as a sign of the still-all-too-high unemployment rate that could tip us into the next recession. But neither analysis is really right. Why? First, the official unemployment rate is arrived at through a bit ...
Services in U.S. Expand at Slowest Pace Since 2010: Economy
Dec. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Service industries in the U.S. expanded in November at the slowest pace since January 2010 as employment cooled, a sign improvement in the biggest part of the economy will be uneven. The Institute for Supply Management’s non-manufacturing index unexpectedly fell to 52 last month from 52.9 in October, the Tempe, Arizona based-group said today. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey called for a gain to 53.9. Fifty is the dividing ...
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