The national unemployment rate inched up slightly to 8.3 percent for the month of July, according to the latest monthly jobs report from the Labor Department.
Though the headline number ticked upward, the economy also added far more jobs than expected, with 163,000 new jobs last month—the most in five months. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg, for example, had predicted a bump of 100,000 jobs.
Still, a stubbornly high unemployment figure is a troubling sign. Job troubles have recently been far-reaching, with no particular industry showing encouraging growth, says Brad Sorensen, Director of Market and Sector Research at Schwab.
"I don't know that there's any specific industry that is...
Read moreComments are closed Senate Clears Bill to Detail Automatic Spending Cuts
The Senate Wednesday evening approved a bill giving the Obama administration 30 days to describe its plans for implementing the $1.2 trillion in automatic spending cuts scheduled to go into effect beginning in January.
The measure had broad support, passing the Senate unanimously after having passed the House 414-2 last week.
Republicans, concerned that half of the automatic cuts will come from defense spending, have pushed the bill as a way to highlight what they say will be a devastating reduction to the military budget resulting from the so-called sequester. But Democrats also backed the proposal as a way to highlight what the cuts would mean, including the portion...
Read moreComments are closed Fed Leaning Closer to New Stimulus if No Growth Is Seen
WASHINGTON — A growing number of Federal Reserve officials have concluded that the central bank needs to expand its stimulus campaign unless the nation’s economy soon shows signs of improvement, including job growth.
The question is expected to dominate the agenda when the Fed’s policy-making committee meets next week, with some members pushing for immediate action while others seek to delay a decision at least until the committee’s next meeting in September, so they can see a few more weeks’ worth of economic data.
The Fed’s chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, Read moreOne comment
Housing Starts Are Up, but Building Permits Decline
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Builders began work on the most new homes in June in well over three years, providing some support to an economy that has shown worrisome signs of cooling.
The Commerce Department said on Wednesday that housing starts rose 6.9 percent last month, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 760,000 units — the highest rate since October 2008.
“Housing is clearly in recovery mode, although the sector is much less important than it used to be,” said Jim O’Sullivan, an economist at High Frequency Economics.
The housing market, which collapsed during the 2007-9 recession, has shown signs...
Read moreComments are closed Points of Light: amid the gloom there are unexpected signs of boom, especially in energy
THE half-finished Shanghai Tower is a hulking concrete wedding cake, rising out of a dusty building site in the central business district. But when it is finished in 2015 the glittering spiral tower will be China’s tallest building and one of its most striking, with two exterior glass skins enclosing nine different climate zones. It will, the developer boasts, “symbolise the dynamic emergence of modern China.”
Less obviously, it also symbolises modern America. The tower owes its design to an American firm of architects, Gensler. Its structural engineer is another American firm, Thornton Tomasetti. Indeed, American companies have left their mark all over Shanghai’s skyline. Ray Yu,...
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