Unemployment

Taking a cue from the Associated Press's Martin Crutsinger in March of last year, two Los Angeles Times reporters told readers on Monday that the economy is about to complete a seventh year of expansion. No it's not, at least not if historical benchmarks for determining expansions are consistently and properly heeded. Reporters Jim Puzzanghera and Don Lee couldn't even keep their own standards…

A Pew Research report published three weeks ago on America’s Shrinking Middle Class presented a fundamentally misleading narrative which the press was only too eager to relay and continues to use, namely that the middle class has been seriously shrinking since the turn of the century. Christopher Rugaber at the Associated Press typified the initial press coverage, writing: "In nearly one-quarter…

In spite of expectations that 160,000 jobs or more were added in May, the latest jobs report was a shocker showing just 38,000 job gains last month. CNBC’s Squawk Box panelists reacted live to that surprising Labor Department report on June 3, which showed that employment increased by a mere 38,000, while unemployment fell to 4.7 percent. However, low labor force participation continues to be a…

Barely a minute into Wednesday’s PBS town hall event with President Barack Obama, PBS NewsHour co-host Gwen Ifill took a few digs at the people of Elkhart, Indiana where the event was being held for not giving Obama “any credit” for their unemployment drop to the point that she exclaimed: “What gives?”

The establishment press has given an open mic to proponents of raising the minimum wage nationally, and has cheered $15-per-hour legislation passed in California and New York earlier this year as "historic." The silence from those same quarters, e.g., the Associated Press, the New York Times and others, is deafening now that one of the predictions of those who have criticized such sharp…

In an analysis for the front page of Wednesday’s New York Times business section, Eduardo Porter trumpeted that the real issue ailing the American economy and impeding on its improvement is the lack of mass government jobs programs similar to its “large and underappreciated role in reshaping” the country during the 19th and 20th centuries. 

Based on the content of John Kerry's Friday commencement speech at Northeastern University, one might have expected that those in attendance threw away their passports after the event ended. That's because the Obama administration's Secretary of State told those in attendance: "You’re about to graduate into a complex and borderless world." Kerry's extraordinarily dense, naive and dangerous…

The press is protecting Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton from the true extent of the blowback over her expressed desire to see coal miners lose their jobs and her bogus attempt to "apologize" for what she said. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, appearing on Fox & Friends Thursday morning, identified a larger truth about Mrs. Clinton's callous disregard for workers and their families…

One of our media bias categories at NewsBusters is Double Standards. There was a classic example of the phenomenon on today's Morning Joe. The show's running theme was relentless mockery and ridicule of Ted Cruz for crossing the street yesterday to calmly debate a group of Trump supporters.  But later in the show, when a clip was run of Hillary being confronted by a West Virginian over her boast…

CNN's Alisyn Camerota tossed mostly hardballs during her interview of Carly Fiorina on Thursday's New Day, especially on the issue of outsourcing. Camerota first cited how the former HP executive was "very honest about the jobs...[she] outsourced" back in 2004, and wondered, "Do you fear that your take back then — and the outsourcing — will come back to haunt you in Indiana?" The anchor followed…

Just in time for tomorrow's first-quarter economic growth announcement from the government, Bloomberg Businessweek's Economics Editor is telling readers: "Don't Sweat America's Upcoming Microscopic GDP Growth." Besides, Peter Coy writes, people need to get used to the supposedly inescapable fact that "Normal growth for the U.S. economy is just a lot lower than it used to be." Americans shouldn't…

As the Washington Free Beacon reported today (confirmed here in a chart published two weeks ago), the number of Americans enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), traditionally known as Food Stamps, dropped below 45 million for the first time in almost five years (actually, 57 months) in January. This is hardly cause for cheer, and does nothing to change the fact that in…

In another blow to the U.S. and worldwide economy, chipmaker Intel announced today that it is reducing its worldwide workforce by 12,000 people, a cut of 11 percent. Of course, there are tech-related reasons why the company made the move, most notably the shift by some users to tablets and smartphones, where the company's market penetration has been weak and almost non-existent, respectively, as…

For better or worse, the press, Wall Street and others routinely place a great deal of faith in the federal government's payroll employment estimates. But when Republican Governor Rick Scott's supporters cited data from Uncle Sam's Bureau of Labor Statistics to defend him against an insufferably rude leftist who started screaming and cursing at him in a Starbucks coffee shop, Associated Press…