Unemployment

On Tuesday, shortly after Governor Jerry Brown signed California's $15-an-hour minimum wage legislation, the Associated Press's Michael R. Blood and Don Thompson called the move "a victory for those struggling on the margins of the economy and the politically powerful unions that pushed it." As seen in a NewsBusters post on March 31, it's definitely a win for union members whose wages are set…

Perhaps this is why the press has been reluctant to cite economists who are predicting that sharp increases in state minimum wages like the $15-per-hour minimums just passed in California and New York will reduce employment: They're with many of their lefty brethren who don't care whether jobs are lost. So they must believe that no one else should care either. At the Washington Post's WonkBlog…

The Associated Press, the nation's de facto business news gatekeeper for those who don't follow the economy or the markets closely, is telling America that the U.S. job market is fine, and ignoring the dismal results seen in weekly pay during the past several months. Christopher Rugaber's Friday evening coverage of the government's jobs report earlier in the day described the reported 215,000 in…

New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes got a prominent Sunday front-page spot for a rather humdrum story on economic recovery in a blue-collar Indiana town and why President Obama wasn’t getting the credit he deserved for it. Racism, perhaps? The puzzled headline: “Political Discontent Festers in Indiana Town Despite Jobs Surge.” Online it was more explicit: “Obama Gets Scant Credit in Indiana…

In covering Thursday morning's report from the Department of Labor on initial unemployment claims, one of a relatively few economic reports showing strength these days, Associated Press reporter Scott Boak spread his enthusiasm over the result to the entire economy. It wasn't justified. It's as if the poor guy has missed most of the pertinent other economic news during the past week, most of…

A Los Angeles Times story by Liam Dillon and Patrick McGreevy hailed the "historic" increase in the state-mandated minimum wage to $15 an hour. Apparently giddy with excitement, the pair also unwisely told readers that many public-sector employees who earn far more will be receiving big raises as a result of the legislation with having to bother negotiating with the government entities involved…

Mark Zandi, Moody's chief economist, comments monthly on the ADP private-sector employment report his firm compiles. He is "often quoted in national and global publications and interviewed by major news media outlets, and is a frequent guest on CNBC, NPR, Meet the Press, CNN, and various other national networks and news programs." Zandi has also been the economy's head cheerleader during much of…

It's so predictable. Whenever a government or leader follows the left's playbook and the results "uexpectedly" don't turn out to be anywhere near what was desired, it isn't the policies' or the leader's fault. No-no-no. During the Mayor David Dinkins era in New York City, it was because Gotham had become ungovernable by any human being – until Rudy Giuliani took over. During the Carter Era, the…

These days, one of the biggest meta-debates in politics concerns apportioning blame for the staying power of the Donald Trump circus. How much of Trump’s popularity is attributable to, say, the mainstream media? To conservative talk radio? In a Sunday post, The Washington Monthly’s Martin Longman pointed the finger at Republicans and absolved President Obama. Apropos of Trump’s economically…

From reading most establishment press news, especially their economy-related reports, you'd think that those who are complaining about the current U.S. economy are outliers — especially the millions of Americans who are angry about it. Though they sometimes acknowledge that forward progress  since the recession hasn't been robust, the media's meme-makers have mostly told us that "overall job…

Since the economy finally began consistently regaining jobs in early 2010, the establishment press has had a consistent, predictable and annoying reporting (and non-reporting) pattern. It starts with the Friday morning jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics at or near the beginning of the month. Virtually without fail, it has spit out positive and sometimes even very positive seasonally…

The press is mostly thrilled over yesterday's Employment Situation Summary from the government, which reported that the unemployment rate stayed at 4.9 percent and that the economy added 242,000 seasonally adjusted payroll jobs. President Barack Obama took the opportunity to take what CNBC's Jeff Cox described as "a victory lap ... in Friday remarks to the media." Well, why not? Obama was secure…

Snooty New York Times columnist/Democratic hack Paul Krugman is very unhappy with Bernie Sanders and his Hillary-bashing supporters. Krugman had previously antagonized the left-wing hive of “Bernie bros” – supposedly sexist critics of Hillary Clinton supporters, and on Friday Krugman lit into Sanders’ economic plan, suggesting an economic plan strongly endorsed by his campaign “outdoes the GOP”…

West Virginia became the nation's 26th state with a "right-to-work" law a bit over a week ago. At the same time, it also repealed "prevailing wage" requirements for public construction projects. The idea that the formerly Democrat-dominated Mountain State would pass either item was unthinkable as little as a decade ago. That was before the Obama administration began its war on coal-powereed…