Unemployment applications drop to lowest since April - Home sales rose for 2nd month

kidrocks · Jul 28, 2011

Could this bit of good news mark the beginning of the economic recovery we have all been hoping for? Could be... stayed tuned boys and girls and keep your fingers crossed.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/employment/2011-07-28-unemployment-numbers_n.htm

WASHINGTON The number of people seeking unemployment benefits dropped last week to the lowest level since early April, a sign the job market may be healing after a recent slump.

The Labor Department said Thursday that weekly applications fell 24,000 to a seasonally adjusted 398,000. That's the first time applications have fallen below 400,000 in 16 weeks.

The four-week average, a less volatile measure, dropped to 413,750, the lowest since the week of April 23.

Stocks rose after the report was released.

Economists cautioned that the lower level only reflects one week of data and that doesn't necessarily signal a trend.

The drop "is clearly good news," said Joshua Shapiro, an economist at MFR. Still, "we would prefer to see further data before concluding that the earlier downtrend in claims is being re-established."

Separately, the National Association of Realtors said more people signed contracts to buy homes in June for the second straight month. But the increase was not enough to signal a rebound in the weak housing market.

The Realtors group said its index of sales agreements for previously occupied homes rose 2.4% in June to a reading of 90.9. The gain and an 8.2% increase in May did not make up for a huge drop-off in April when contract signings had fallen 11.3%.

A reading of 100 is considered healthy by economists. The last time the index reached that level was in April 2010, the final month when buyers could qualify for a federal tax credit.
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waltky · Aug 6, 2011

Granny says people givin' up an' goin' home...

Unemployment Rate Drops a Notch As Some People Stop Looking for Work
Friday, August 05, 2011 : WASHINGTON (AP) - Hiring picked up slightly in July and the unemployment rate dipped to 9.1 percent, an optimistic sign after the worst day on Wall Street in nearly three years.

Employers added 117,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said Friday. That's better than the past two months, which were also revised higher. The mild improvement may ease investors' concerns after the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted more than 500 points over concerns that the U.S. may be entering another recession. Businesses added 154,000 jobs across many industries. Governments cut 37,000 jobs last month. Still, 23,000 of those losses were almost entirely because of the shutdown of Minnesota's state government.

Still, the economy needs twice as many net jobs per month to rapidly reduce unemployment. The rate has topped 9 percent in every month except two since the recession officially ended in June 2009. The unemployment rate fell partly because some unemployed workers stopped looking for work. That means they are no longer counted as unemployed. The report follows a string of gloomy data that shows the economy has weakened.

The economy expanded at a meager 0.8 percent annual rate in the first six months of this year, the slowest pace since the recession officially ended. Manufacturers are barely growing. Service companies are growing at the weakest pace in a year and a half. Consumers cut spending in June for the first time in 20 months, and they saved more. High gas prices and scant wage increases have squeezed U.S. consumers this year. And consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of economic activity.

Businesses have responded by cutting hiring after a strong start in which they added an average of 215,000 jobs a month from February through April. But the government revised the previous two months' totals to show hiring wasn't as weak as first estimated. The economy added 53,000 in May, up from an earlier estimate of 25,000, and 46,000 in June, up from 18,000. June's total was still the weakest in nine months. Hiring in July was broad-based. Manufacturers added 24,000 jobs in July, as auto companies laid off fewer workers in July than usual. Retailers hired a net total of 26,000 employees. Employment in health care grew 31,000. Hotels and restaurants added 17,000.

Source
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waltky · Aug 18, 2011

Jobless rate goin' back up...

More People Sought Unemployment Benefits Last Week
Thursday, August 18, 2011 WASHINGTON (AP) - The number of people applying for unemployment benefits rose back above 400,000 last week. Still, the four-week average, a more reliable gauge of the job market, fell to the lowest level since mid-April.

The report suggests that the economy is creating jobs but not nearly enough to lower the high unemployment rate. Weekly applications rose 9,000 to a seasonally adjusted 408,000, the Labor Department said Thursday. That's the highest level in four weeks. Applications have been above 400,000 for 18 of the past 19 weeks. The four-week average dropped for the seventh straight week to 402,500. Still, applications typically must fall below 375,000 to signal healthy job growth. The last time they were that low was in late February. Two weeks ago, applications dropped to 399,000. That was the first time they had fallen below 400,000 since early April. Separately, the Labor Department said consumers paid more for gas, food and clothes last month, pushing prices up by the most since the spring.

The Consumer Price Index rose 0.5 percent in July, following a drop of 0.2 percent in June. Gas prices accounted for much of the swing. The core index, which excludes volatile food and energy, rose 0.2 percent. The report on weekly unemployment applications does provide some positive signs for hiring in August. Applications are lower than they were in mid-July, when they totaled 422,000. Thursday's report covers the week in which the Labor Department asks companies about their payrolls for its August report on hiring. The drop from last month suggests slightly more jobs were added this month. Employers added 117,000 net jobs in July, roughly double the totals from each of the previous two months. The unemployment rate ticked down to 9.1 percent.

Other recent data show the economy gradually improved in July, after growing at annual rate of just 0.8 percent in the first six months of the year. Consumers spent more on retail goods in July than in any month since March. And factory output rose in July by the most since the Japan crisis, a sign that supply chain disruptions caused by the March 11 earthquake could be fading. Still, July's job gains are barely enough to keep up with population growth. At least double that many new jobs are needed to significantly reduce unemployment. And a consumer sentiment survey taken earlier this month showed confidence in the economy fell to the lowest level in 31 years, raising concerns that Americans could pull back on spending.

Worries about U.S. economic weakness and the ongoing European debt crisis caused the stock markets to plunge in recent weeks. While stock indexes have recovered some lost ground, the Dow Jones industrial average is more than 1,200 points lower than it was on July 22. In an effort to boost growth, the Federal Reserve last week said it will keep its benchmark short-term interest rate at nearly zero until mid-2013. Previously, the central bank had never given a clear time frame. It hopes the certainty of low rates will encourage consumers and businesses to borrow and spend more. The Fed's assessment of the economy last week was gloomier than it had been in June. The Fed said it "anticipates that the unemployment rate will decline only gradually."

Source
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waltky · Sep 6, 2011

It really went up instead of stayin' flat...

Real Unemployment Rate Rose in August to 16.2% -- 26 Million People
Tuesday, September 06, 2011 The real unemployment rate actually rose in August, according to the Department of Labor, belying the fact that the official unemployment rate, 9.1 percent, remained flat while the economy did not create any new jobs on net last month.

According to the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, real unemployment rose to 16.2 percent in August, up from 16.1 percent in July and tying the 2011 record set in June.

The real unemployment rate is comprised of three different measures of the labor force that more accurately reflect who is really unemployed, as opposed to the official unemployment rate, which merely measures those who told the government they were unemployed and looking for work in the past month.

The real unemployment rate is comprised of the official unemployment rate, those employed part-time because they cannot find full-time work, and those marginally attached to the labor force: people who have stopped looking for work but would return to the labor force if jobs were available.

All told, the total number of Americans who are truly unemployed those that make up the real unemployment rate is now 26 million people, according to the Labor Department data.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/real-unemployment-rate-rose-august-162-2
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See also:

DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz: Economy Is 'Continuing on the Upswing'
Tuesday, September 06, 2011 - Just days after the Labor Department announced zero job growth for the month of August, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D.-Fla.), the chair of the Democratic National Committee, said that the economy is continuing on the upswing" and that every economist "worth their salt" acknowledges that this is the result of the economic stimulus signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2009.

When Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act in February of that year, the national unemployment rate was 8.2 percent. As the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week, the national unemployment rate was 9.1 percent this August, unchanged from July. Before Obama signed the economic stimulus, his top economic advisers predicted unemployment would stay below 8 percent if it were enacted. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the the stimulus cost $825 billion. During Obama's presidency, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, annualized growth in the real Gross Domestic Product peaked at 3.9 percent in the first quarter of 2010. By the first two quarters of this year, it had dropped to 0.4 percent and 1.0 percent.

Still, Wasserman Schultz, when asked on MSNBC on Tuesday whether the president could sell another jobs plan to Congress if it resembled the stimulus package, the DNC chair argued that the stimulus worked and is responsible for an economy she described as "continuing on the upswing." The Republicans who think that the Recovery Act didnt work are simply wrong, said Wasserman Schultz. The Recovery Act as of the beginning of this year created an additional 3.6 million jobs. The Recovery Act had a direct impact on making sure that teachers, firefighters, police officers were able to remain in their jobs. It begun--it helped begin to turn the economy around. Fifty percent of it was tax breaks to small businesses and to the middle class.

Wasserman Schultz said Republicans cannot ignore the facts of success from the stimulus. So, every economist you would talk to that is worth their salt acknowledges that without the Recovery Act we would not be continuing on the upswing, Wasserman Schultz continued during an interview on Morning Joe. Wed still be either stuck or spiraling downward. So the Republicans cant make up their own facts. The bottom line is the Recovery Act had an impact.

The non-partisan FactCheck.org said in an analysis in June that the stimulus failed to meet expectations. CBO's high estimate is still short of the 3.5 million jobs that Obama had said would be created by the end of 2010, so its accurate to say the stimulus has failed to live up to initial expectations, FactCheck.org said. White House advisers wrongly estimated that the stimulus would bring the unemployment rate down to 7 percent though they also thought the rate without the stimulus would be lower than it actually is, and they made clear that substantial uncertainty surrounded those estimates.

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/dnc-chair-says-economy-continuing-upswin-0
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Unemployment applications drop to lowest since April - Home sales rose for 2nd month

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Unemployment applications drop to lowest since April - Home sales rose for 2nd month

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