Unemployment

In a dispatch accusing the Trump administration of hypocrisy in expressing pleasure over Friday's jobs report from the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics, Associated Press reporters Jill Colvin and Christopher Rugaber, with additional assistance from Jonathan Lemire, either betrayed an amazing collective level of ignorance about what a households is, or were so blinded by the need to…

Prior to the Friday afternoon White House press briefing, CNN’s Wolf attempted to tamp down on the Trump administration’s positive vibes regarding the February jobs report, wondering if President Donald Trump is really able to “claim credit” for such a strong month. 

During Friday’s White House press briefing, Bloomberg correspondent Justin Sink pressed Sean Spicer on whether the administration was “too excited” by a positive February jobs report released that morning: “Obviously you guys were excited by the jobs report, but maybe a little too excited. Both you and the President tweeting within an hour of the jobs data coming out, which is a violation of the…

It’s not everyday that a payroll jobs analysis “crushes” expectations by coming in 100K above the forecast. So when it does, it should be big news. And it was for some media outlets, but not to the broadcast networks. All three evening news programs: CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and ABC World News with David Muir said nothing about the latest ADP report on March 8.

There is little doubt that the big economic news Wednesday was payroll and employee benefits giant ADP's estimate that the economy added 298,000 seasonally adjusted private-sector jobs in February. Over seven hours later, the New York Times did not have the news on its website's home page — or even at its "Business Day" business and financial news web page.

What everyone knew would happen as a result of Philadelphia's 1.5 cents-per-ounce soda tax began materializing on Wednesday, as Pepsi announced that it would lay off roughly 20 percent of its workforce there over the next several months. Coverage at both Philly.com and Associated Press allowed the city to engage in fantasy by claiming without meaningful challenge, or even clarification, that…

A week ago, the Columbus Dispatch reported that Wendy's, the fast-food chain, announced "plans to install self-ordering kiosks in 1,000 of its stores — about 16 percent of its locations — by the end of the year." Although company officials observed 18 months ago that such a move would be inevitable if the trend towards laws demanding far-above-market minimum wages continued, both J.D. Malone's…

On Tuesday morning's MSNBC Live, Louise Mensch, though she claims to be a conservative, put forth what I suspect will be the left's core economic argument if the economy improves under Donald Trump. That argument: The economy is "fantastic" already, and Trump will have had nothing to do with whatever economic improvements over what is already "fantastic" we might see.

In the editorial titled "The Grand Old Party of Disenfranchisement," the Washington Post rides to the defense of convicted felons by conflating the rights of criminals with the rights of blacks in taking aim at Virginia Republicans who are pushing to make it more difficult for felons to regain their right to vote. In its first sentence, the article accuses the Virginia GOP of trying to "suppress…

There is little question in most academic research that increases in the minimum wage lead to increases in unemployment. The debatable issue is the magnitude of the increase. An issue not often included in minimum wage debates is the substitution effects of minimum wage increases. The substitution effect might explain why Business for a Fair Minimum Wage, a national network of business owners and…

On Morning Joe Thursday, host Joe Scarborough ripped Labor Secretary nominee Andrew Puzder for his time as the chief executive of CKE Restaurants, which owns franchises such as Hardee's and Carl's Jr.

You would think that the establishment press and the rest of the opposition to Donald Trump's administration might be able to capitalize substantively (shrieking fundraising letters don't count as "substance") on Kellyanne Conway's shaky reference to "alternative facts" about a week ago. (She should have said, "I have different, more defensible estimates than you do," because she did.) So far…

In what seemed like the ramblings of a 19th century Luddite, New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner, Tom Friedman appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday where he issued a ridiculous warning about the US economy under President Donald Trump. “So what’s going to happen if prices go up? American companies will build those factories here,” he exclaimed, “And you know what they'll do?…

Because he was the "singular 2016 (GOP) presidential contender never to fall in line behind Trump," Ohio Governor and two-time former presidential candidate John Kasich now has the Associated Press's deep respect. This largely explains why the wire service has been all too willing to ignore the fact that Kasich alone owns Ohio's impending budget problems.