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By Patty Sharaf with Robert Scheer
$15.00
By Bill Boyarsky
$12.15
$23
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AP / Mark Lennihan
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By Steven Hill — Why have economists been so wrong so often? Certainly theirs is a tough job, since the global economy is a complex creature. Yet it turns out that their measuring sticks are woefully inadequate. Indeed, they aren’t even sure what to measure.
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bbc.co.uk
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A suicide bomber struck an army recruitment center in a busy part of central Baghdad early Tuesday morning, killing at least 59 people and injuring more than 100, according to the BBC.
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By Ruth Marcus — Congress has acted, after a cruel delay, to renew the extension of unemployment benefits for as long as 99 weeks. This raises the question: Do the beefed-up benefits encourage people not to work?
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AP / Lynne Sladky
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The weather may have sizzled in July, but it wasn’t such a hot month for the U.S. economy. Private employers added 71,000 jobs during the month, about half what had been expected, keeping the unemployment rate at a nagging 9.5 percent.
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whitehouse.gov
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Christina Romer, who heads up Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, is exiting the White House, the National Journal’s Hotline On Call blog reported Thursday, and her rumored reasons for leaving have something to do with one Larry Summers and his continuing hold on the president.
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Wikimedia Commons / U.S. Federal Reserve
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Those out-of-work Americans hoping to hear something encouraging from the general direction of Capitol Hill wouldn’t like what Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke had to say to Congress on Wednesday.
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AP / J. Scott Applewhite
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By Robert Scheer — Thanks to the defection of the two relatively enlightened Republican senators from Maine and the quick replacement of the late Democratic Sen. Robert Byrd, unemployment checks that had been stalled for millions of American families since early June will soon resume. But for Republicans, it has been a defining issue that will haunt the party.
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Dorothea Lange
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Overcoming the objections of Democrat Ben Nelson and 39 of his Republican friends, 60 senators passed a key procedural vote Tuesday, making an extension of unemployment benefits a near certainty. Senators siding with the jobless included 56 Democrats, two independents and the Republican senators from Maine.
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In a Monday press conference, President Barack Obama threw down once again in his ongoing battle to extend unemployment benefits, making his displeasure with his opponents in Congress eminently clear ... (continued)
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Flickr / clementine gallot
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President Obama isn’t letting some ornery GOP types in Congress get in the way of making another push to extend unemployment benefits for out-of-work Americans—or so we hope.
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AP / Carolyn Kaster
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By Robert Scheer — The flight from reason that now marks American public discourse came home for me last Friday when I found myself on public radio debating whether Barack Obama is anti-business.
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Flickr / Thirteen of Clubs
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Most Americans have caught on by now that the economic implosion that rocked the national and global economy over the past two years hasn’t meant good things for their personal finances. (continued)
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AP / Orlin Wagner
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President Barack Obama didn’t exactly have the numbers on his side Thursday when he told voters in Kansas City, Mo., that, economically speaking, “we’re headed in the right direction.”
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Stephen Colbert’s a bit under the weather in this clip from Monday night’s “Colbert Report,” and it’s going to take a lot more than bunny slippers to make things better. Enter economics whiz Paul Krugman ... (continued)
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Flickr / twicepix (CC-BY-SA)
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By Eugene Robinson — Let me put it in terms that Washington understands: The party that begins to treat the unemployment crisis with the hair-on-fire urgency that it deserves is the party that will do well in November.
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AP / Mark Lennihan
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June’s private-sector employment growth was less than stellar, with a “dishearteningly low number” of jobs being added to domestic payrolls in a signal that the economic recovery is encountering some serious headwinds.
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Flickr / wallyg
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House Democrats pushed for it, but on Tuesday opponents of a bill that would extend unemployment benefits for Americans long out of work won this round of legislative jostling over how to help struggling job hunters ... (continued)
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Flickr / Center for American Progress
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Strapped-for-cash states may be up the creek on this one: A jobs bill has stalled in the Senate, jeopardizing billions in federal aid to struggling states. Local and state officials are warning of layoffs in the hundreds of thousands and drastic spending cuts if the bill is not resuscitated.
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Wikimedia Commons / U.S. Federal Reserve
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There are economic indicators that we want to be on the high end of the scale, but unemployment isn’t one of them. Unfortunately, according to Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, the U.S. unemployment rate ... (continued)
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Wikimedia Commons / Steele for Chairman
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A president’s employment problem is the opposition’s cannon fodder during election season, and Friday’s bad news on employment is giving the GOP some opportunities to lob a few more hits at the Democrats during the lead-in to this fall’s midterm elections.
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Flickr / brmurray
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The U.S. economy tacked on 431,000 new jobs in May, the biggest monthly jump in a decade, but most of those were people hired for the 2010 census count, and those jobs will vanish after the summer.
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AP / Jessica Hill
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By Robert Scheer — What is so great about our bloated federal government that when a libertarian threatens to become a senator, otherwise rational and mostly liberal pundits start frothing at the mouth? What Rand Paul thinks about the Civil Rights Act, passed 46 years ago, hardly seems the most pressing issue of social justice before us.
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Flickr / aflcio
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By Bill Boyarsky — As President Barack Obama, speaking last week in Buffalo, N.Y., was assuring the country that “our economy is growing again,” the usual large number of unemployed lined up at a community aid center in Los Angeles for food, clothing, advice and help finding a job.
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AP / Amy Sancetta
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By Moshe Adler — Don’t be fooled by newspaper reports claiming that higher unemployment is somehow good news—it isn’t.
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Flickr / Hector Lopez-Berges
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With all the focus on job losses here at home, we sometimes forget how the economic crisis—which originated in the U.S.—has affected other countries. Official figures in Spain, for example, show that that country’s unemployment rate has hit 20 percent, highest in the eurozone.
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AP / Henny Ray Abrams
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Even in the face of an extended recession, devastating double-digit unemployment and a barrage of political charges that President Barack Obama’s health care reform will decimate the economy, the U.S. stock market finished the week at a 19-month high.
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Wikimedia Commons / Scrumshus
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Four Republicans, including Scott Brown of Massachusetts, broke ranks Monday to help Democrats move an extension of unemployment benefits forward. The Dow may be over 11,000 again, but real unemployment is hovering around 17 percent, close to an all-time high.
Posted on Apr 12, 2010
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Check out this new “Fault Lines” video in which Avi Lewis examines the lives of Americans who are jobless or underemployed—a number approaching 30 million.
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AP / M. Spencer Green
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An improving U.S. labor market has convinced President Obama that the domestic economy is “beginning to turn the corner,” though he cautions that a sustained employment boom will take time.
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Flickr / edEx
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A better job market could be on the way for Americans looking for work if the job-creation bill passed by the Senate on Wednesday gets President Barack Obama’s approval, and if the legislation actually inspires employers to do some hiring.
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AP / Wade Payne
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By Bill Boyarsky — The lines at health care centers in working class communities around the country start forming when other Americans are going to bed, and they’re getting longer.
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AP / Charles Rex Arbogast
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By Bill Boyarsky — People are just barely hanging on at employment offices, homeless shelters, food banks and community centers around the country. Help is needed right away and Barack Obama is struggling to give it.
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AP / Susan Walsh
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Someone might want to call President Barack Obama’s attention to the main message of Paul Krugman’s latest Op-Ed column in The New York Times: This whole bipartisanship idea isn’t going to catch on in Congress. Krugman takes the recent example of the bill-blockading gymnastics of Sen. Jim Bunning (pictured above), along with ... (continued)
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Bureau of Labor Statistics
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Analysts are looking at February as a not-so-bad month for unemployment, with the U.S. economy losing fewer jobs than expected for the month, while the unemployment rate remained stubbornly high at 9.7 percent.
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Marvel.com
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Not even superheroes are safe in this economy. Peter Parker, aka Spider-Man, is going to get fired in the next issue of the comic book. Marvel says the unemployed webslinger will have to figure out how to pay his rent and buy web fluid without his photography gig.
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Objection-raising robot Sen. Jim Bunning sure had his day, and his night, on Friday, what with his single-handed stymieing of the proposed extension of health care and unemployment benefits for out-of-work Americans. But, as he pointed out near the end of Friday’s jousting session on the Senate floor, it’s not as if he wasn’t inconvenienced himself.
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Wikimedia Commons / Congress
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Sen. Jim Bunning was not a popular man among his Democratic colleagues this week. The Kentucky Republican, apparently so concerned about the federal budget deficit that he thought it unwise to allow the passage of legislation extending unemployment and health care help to jobless Americans, enacted a “one-man filibuster,” as the Los Angeles Times put it, and didn’t budge on Friday.
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Flickr / clementine gallot
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The Obama administration is homing in on the employment issue, a prime concern for millions of Americans and one that could have a considerable impact on this year’s midterm elections. Not like that’s what the White House is worried about or anything.
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Flickr / edEx
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Another indicator that Congress needs to get to work on the country’s pressing unemployment problem came in the form of a Labor Department report showing a spike in the number of first-time filers for unemployment benefits last week, according to The Associated Press.
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AP / Pablo Martinez Monsivais
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Just a day after their motivational session with President Barack Obama, Senate Democrats got back to the task of regaining some lost political capital, making a bid to better their situation and that of out-of-work Americans by introducing a job-creation package—on the same day, the Los Angeles Times noted, that Massachusetts Sen.-elect Scott Brown was to be sworn in.
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businessinsider.com
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While seemingly intuitive, it’s bit frightening to see the correlation so clearly illustrated: A graphic, covering a 12-year period, shows the tie between Ohio’s unemployment rate and the amount of alcohol purchased. With unemployment and booze consumption at their contemporary highs, many are wondering about the public health effects of unemployment on those out of work.
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AP / J. Scott Applewhite
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With unemployment running at 10 percent and Wall Street bankers again pocketing big bonuses, many see Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s priorities as skewed. But absent from those critics is the White House, which believes Bernanke will be reconfirmed for a second term next week.
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ProPublica
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ProPublica reports that after paying out unemployment benefits to a record 20 million people, 25 states ran out of funds and now must borrow, tax and slash to keep the checks in the mail. Find out how your state is doing with this handy tool.
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AP / Mark Lennihan
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He’s not the only one saying this, but considering his background, Robert Reich is a pretty significant voice pointing out how, over a year since things went seriously south on Wall Street, “almost nothing has been done to prevent all hell from breaking loose again.”
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Flickr / edEx
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After a smidgen of good economic news in November, the U.S. economy unexpectedly shed 85,000 more jobs in December, continuing a nearly two-year trend and keeping the unemployment rate at 10 percent.
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The total price tag for each American for the financial bailout is about $10,000. Could be worse: Brits are paying more than $47,000 apiece. The unemployed bear the brunt of the meltdown, but we all carry a debt for saving Citi, AIG and the rest.
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Flickr / edEx
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The Labor Department announced Thursday that fewer Americans than anticipated have filed unemployment benefit claims this month, potentially pointing to a less substantial unemployment population and maybe, just maybe, better economic growth in 2010.
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Flickr / alancleaver_2000
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Despite staggering unemployment and a poor economic climate, the nation’s crime rate fell 4.4 percent in the first six months of 2009. The national murder rate also fell 10 percent—a decline that is being called one of the more significant in decades.
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Letter From Birmingham Jail
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