The number of Americans filing new claims for unemployment benefits fell sharply last week to the lowest level in more than four and a half years, according to government data on Thursday that suggested improvement in the labor market…
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell 30,000 to a seasonally adjusted 339,000, the Labor Department said.
It was the lowest number of new claims since February 2008, about a year before Obama took office in the midst of the global financial crisis…
A Labor Department analyst noted that seasonal factors had predicted a very large increase in claims last week, which he said would be typical for the first week of the calendar quarter. Unadjusted claims did rise, but far less than expected, resulting in the sharp drop in the seasonally adjusted figure…
Economists said the labor market was showing signs of getting stronger…
Economists polled by Reuters had forecast claims edging up to 370,0000 last week. The four-week moving average for new claims, a better measure of labor market trends, fell 11,500 to 364,000…
Recent data on the U.S. labor market has been encouraging.
Employers added a modest 114,000 jobs to their payrolls in September, but the unemployment rate dropped sharply to 7.8 percent, also the lowest level since Obama took office…
One under-reported aspect of times changing oh-so-slowly for the better is the strength of Keynesian measures. Even in the face of a dogpile of cowards and craven Congressional conservatives dragging their feet – that portion of stimulus measures that was able to be implemented continues to have an effect.
I notice there is no chart provided to show how absurd the headline for this is.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2012/10/weekly-initial-unemployment-claims_11.html
This chart shows that this headline is a cruel joke and pure spin.
Oh, these numbers are a complete validation of the Keynesian disaster wrought on the economy by Mittens and Obiden.
Please more stimulus, please more debt that we will never be able to pay off! Please turn the US into Greece and Spain a pure utopia!
With Obiden and Mittens we are well on the way.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2222rank.html?countryName=United%20States&countryCode=us®ionCode=noa&rank=190#us
I hope Obama spikes the ball on Willard’s head on this one! Yay the unemployment rate is well below 8% !!
> Congrats to Prez Obama on delivering.
> Boo to Willard for being a hypocrite (as the above pic shows)
> Boo to Willard for tax evasion in hiding his money in the ocean
> Boo Hoo to Boehner for being such a pussy and always crying
You do know this number is because one large state(unidentified) did not report its data?
And the unconfirmed rumor is that it is Democratically controlled CA and that it is because of particularly large number there… Honest Government would not report partial number. Functional state Government would not hide or otherwise not comply with legal requirement for data.
This idea that Obama saved GM and Romney wanted it to go bankrupt is false. If the parties were switched, the fact checkers would label it pants on fire or mostly false, 3 or 4 pinocchios. GM DID go bankrupt. Instead of the Chapter 11 that Romney recommended, they did a Chapter 393 bankruptcy arranged so that Obama’s union allies dodn’t have to take much of a hit. Nonunion workers were not so lucky.
The capital to let the survive the bankruptcy is the key. Private money wouldnt touch it. Even Bain passed. Without the government funds, GM and Chrysler would have both been carved up and would likely not exist.
Millions of American jobs lost and two valuable American corporate assets dead.
Now you want to follow this story, after the bankruptcy story fell apart? This is just like how Obama claims his stimulus saved jobs after it failed to create them as promised.
Oh so only you are allowed to comment on more than one story? I didnt realize *his majesty* had set a quota.
Huh? Methinks you misunderstood my comment.
You really want to seize on these talking points put out by Team Obama? The stimulus didn’t work as they said, so they invented a story of jobs created or saved. Now the bailout of GM didn’t make taxpayers whole, so they are inventing a story of it was the only option, and leaving out the fact that they in fact took GM to bankruptcy.
And for cartoon: Romney is on record that GM should go through organized bankruptcy without any taxpayers money spent on them. Eventually, after taxpayers spent money on them (or was it on unions) – GM went EXACTLY through organized bankruptcy… Difference: our money spent without any change in outcome; government in possession of part of the stock and able to apply fascist economic model by controlling private industry; bankruptcy laws misapplied stealing from stock holders, because now after our money was in, government could manipulate legal process away from the fair.
But at least they got to shut down Hummer!
The thing you are omitting is that THERE WAS NO ONE WILLING to put up ANY CAPITOL to have an organized (preplanned) bankruptcy. The nation was in a giant credit crises because every private source of funds wouldn’t lend their mother a dime even with a dollar of collateral.
Without the government stepping up to the plate, GM and Chrysler would have entered bankruptcy without a plan in place on how to exit bankruptcy. Their continuing operations would have been severely constrained, if not impossible. Most, if not all, of their suppliers would have followed them into bankruptcy. Ford believed this scenario would have dragged them into bankruptcy also, as they share many of the same suppliers.
It is very likely that major portions of the US auto industry would still be in bankruptcy court today if not for the US government intervention. GM, Chrysler and Ford would have made a mess even greater than the Interstate Brands bankruptcy that went from September 2004 to February 2009. Renamed Hostess Brands, it has reentered bankruptcy as of January 2012.
If you can find evidence of any bank or private equity that said they were willing to provide (and had the resources to provide) the $20-30 Billion in bridge loans and financing for there to have been an organized GM bankruptcy without government money, please provide the link. Until I see evidence otherwise, the only entity with the money willing to step up was the US government. As messy and unclean as it was. The alternative was far, far worse and the US economy would be much worse off than it is now.
No, they would have been fine, provided you let them get through the bankruptcy. That’s why you have bankruptcy proceedings, so the parties that are due will be given their cut of what’s available, and a reorganized company can move forward. Instead Obama chose to take more money from creditors to give to unions, thus requiring government money in the process.
When arguing that an alternative plan would have been better than the plan that had a successful outcome, you have to do better than
“It would have all worked out. I cant say how, but it would have…”
The union member in your picture is being forced to support Obama. Union members are being fined if they don’t show up for rallies in support of the bosses’ candidates. At the Warren-Brown debate, a union guy said they were fined 250 if they don’t show up.
How much do you lose in astroturf pay when you don’t spout this nonsense?
“Somebody said that somebody else was threatened by a person who told them they had to do something.”
Now those are facts you can base your vote on!!
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KQjh3mv0w14
I missed the similarity of your comment. Nice. But the astroturfing is on the left with paying for protesters. It’s why they are so quick to accuse the Tea Partry of being bought.
Without the Calif number things are peachy
We don’t know it’s California, do we? We do know that the Obama Administration has lied to Eideard.
obama could invade Poland and start building camps and gullible and faithful eidard would still continue to believe in his holy saviour, he’s like a radical religious dog.
Am I better off than I was 4 years ago?
No.
= 25% pay cut in the last year
= Taxes set rise in January
= $3.90/gal gas
= Annual health insurance premiums rising faster than previous years
= Double digit unemployment rates for blacks, teens
= Families I know with special needs children being told their pedatrician won’t accept new Medicaid patients (exisiting patients are fine, new must pay cash/check/credit cards)
= Check the U6 when you really want to know the Unemployment percentage
You have clearly failed to take responsibility for your own financial welfare, you tax sucking leach.
So when your house is on fire and the firemen come and put it out, do you yell at them becasue your house is still damaged and youre not “better off” than before?
Many people are still struggling, but I havent seen any policy put out by Romney or McCain that would have made anything better. Some would have been worse.
Republican laissez faire pro corporate policies set the fire, Ill be damned if Im going to let them hold the box of matches.
Clearly your pay cut will result in lower taxes. Quit your bitching and learn a trade. Stop blaming Obama for being a disappointment to you and your family
I read this with interest, because I see people bitching about unions, you ever think that unions could be a good thing to stop the middle class attack. It amazes just how little people know about history and why unions were invented, to protect the workers, increase their standard of living and to stop the rich taking it out on the poor. This seems to be the direction we are going as everyone things that it’s the union’s fault that the economy is in the crapper. My second point is that the UK has a Conservative government right now and guess what their economy is in the s#*t too, even though they implemented a “Austerity” budget.
To quote Bobbo “Stupid hoomans”
Actually, unions were quite useful to keep minorities from getting employment. Closed shop is a closed shop.
Twit Storm.
Can someone explain why jobs are so good in and of themselves? Sure, we are told, that will cause people to go and spend money, blah blah blah. But aside from putting the cart before the horse in claiming that consumption is the key to prosperity, why does it matter if people have jobs or not? If spending is the goal, then just cutting big checks to everyone ought to do the trick.
“according to government data”
Exactly.
So why would we believe it?
Why did Obama lie to Eideard?
GM so should have been left to fail. It can’t be stated in words.
DOL places blame on California with an estimate of 15-25 k more jobless claims.
California says it isn’t so.
http://businessinsider.com/what-happened-with-jobless-claims-2012-10
Thank you for warning us how evil republicans are.
Democrats are wonderful.
Thank you for you inspiration posting.
Romney thought they should have done something a lot nearer to a traditional bankruptcy. It would have saved the nation about 24 billion and kept GM from having to blow money on the Volt.
Ford didn’t need a bailout and neither did several other car companies now making cars in the US. That being the case the US auto industry was not saved by the bailout.
You are talking about only one part of the US auto industry, the part in the unionized upper Midwest.
And even then it is only 2/3 of the part of the US auto industry that is in the unionized upper Midwest.
The real auto industry bailout comes from gutting Obama’s rules calling for 54.5 MPG for cars and trucks.
True. Better approach: phase in a ten dollar a gallon gas tax and let the market respond as it will.
Don’t worry, the dollars to do that have already been printed.
And don’t forget you will get $10/loaf bread too.
Obama won’t answer questions about why he lied about Libya, but will he at least explain why he lied to Eideard about jobless claims?
Turns out the two posts can be linked together.
In the Ford town of Dearborn, you are interviewed by the police for displaying an Israeli flag.
http://blazingcatfur.blogspot.ca/2012/10/dearborn-fordson-high-school-principal.html
Biden claims its never been done before, but he voted for Reagan’s tax cuts in 1986. Top rate of 28%.
Actually another low number is the participation rate of Americans looking for work. Its the lowest in 30 years. Showing we have a lot of potential workers not looking for work anymore.
If they still were looking our unemployment rate is figured at about 11%. So no we are not improving we are simply playing with numbers here. Taking advantage of the fact the jobless people have stopped looking so they are not counted. How sad the Democrats use these numbers to show improvement.
The number you want to use was close to 20% at its worst so things have gotten better.
They’re getting desperate. I predicted they would try a fake assassination attempt to get reelected. I also thought they were incompetent and might get the Pres killed in doing so, as seen from their lousily forged birth certificate. Now, we see shots fired in Denver at Obama campaign headquarters, ‘coincidentally’ near Columbine. Best they could do, or trial run?
So how do they report a seasonally adjusted number? There is a precise number of jobless claims. With temperatures, they report on an anomaly basis, but here they are reporting an actual number.
Number is 388000 this week, after they fixed the California reporting problem. When are you going to post a correction?