unemployment

Efforts by those who never want to hear someone say, “Bye-bye American manufacturing,” converged coincidentally to make June Buy American month.

First, at the forceful urging of U.S. Sen. more »

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In light of today's terrible job numbers, it's a bittersweet experience to re-read a recent report from Wells Fargo Bank which argues that high unemployment is "the new normal." While it's comforting to find Wells Fargo employees who aren't laundering money for the Mexican drug cartels, their report is one more ideologically-driven nail in the coffin of America's jobs agenda.

Ideology's not a bad thing in politics, but it is a bad thing when it's disguised as as a work of unbiased analysis. Despite their mild disclaimers, that's exactly the posture Wells Fargo's economists are adopting.

They may not even realize how biased and ideological their report is, and that's the problem. Almost three years later, people are still hewing to the flawed philosophies that led to the financial crisis. That prevents the country from taking steps to end the permanent recession that enshrouds whole segments of our population. more »

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When it comes to the economy, America's newspapers may be failing their readers. A new report by the National Journal confirms that our major papers have dramatically decreased their coverage of the country's enormous unemployment problem, while at the same time sharply stepping up their coverage of the important but less immediately urgent problem of Federal deficits. As a result, Washington is gripped by an artificial crisis while a real one is ignored.

The question is why? Why have politicians and the media allowed our nation's unemployed to become the Invisible Americans? Their premature obsession with deficits makes it politically impossible for the government to invest in fixing the problem. Fixating on deficits while millions are out of work is like worrying about water damage while your house is still on fire.

In what may be a related development, the public now rates newspaper reporters lower than bankers for "honesty" and "ethical standards." Bankers. That may not a fair judgment, but it's one that only reporters and their editors can change.

Here's what the National Journal found: more »

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It is amazing, given that we've been fighting a three-alarm unemployment fire with water buckets the past few months, that there is any positive news at all in the unemployment front. But there was a surprising net increase in 244,000 new jobs in April—a sliver of good news to cling to. more »

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Within a week, as the news and analysis of Osama bin Laden's demise fades, the American people will focus once again on the issues that matter most to their daily lives. For most Americans, that includes the jobs market and the state of our economy. more »

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The nation’s greedy corporations and insatiable wealthy are fattening themselves on workers. There’s no trickle down. It’s the opposite; the rich have been sucking the economic lifeblood from the middle class for decades. more »

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Scientists say there are trillions of parallel universes. Statistically, that means that must be one where some poor version of humanity lives in an inverted, mind-bending alternate reality where everything is backwards and nothing makes sense.

But why did it have to be us?

Consider the latest evidence: 64 Senators are ignoring the one problem that polls consistently show is the public's highest priority. Instead they've written a letter to the President asking him to make a different issue his highest priority - and to address it by doing something the public doesn't want. In return they're promising that they'll do something the public doesn't want, too.

Welcome to reality.

You can see the original letter here. Then you can keep reading to see what that letter would say in a rational universe. more »

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I was looking for news reports about the "99ers" -- people unemployed for 99 weeks or more, and therefore unable to receive any unemployment benefits -- and noticed that almost no one is cover more »

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Not the wars. Not greenhouse gasses. Not even the deficit. The issue most important to Americans is jobs.

Despite that, jobs failed to make an appearance in the State of the Union address.

The talk was all about business. Business was doing better. Business needed taxpayers to help pay for research and innovation. Business will get government help to eliminate pesky regulations. more »

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