Unemployment

"Compared to George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, Obama has been more fiscally conservative than any other president in recent history, with the exception of President Bill Clinton." Despite over $5 trillion in new debt created by the 44th president, so hysterically wrote Barbra Streisand at the Huffington Post Tuesday.

Syndicated columnist Pat Buchanan made a statement on Fox News's On the Record Tuesday that is guaranteed to raise eyebrows on both sides of the aisle. Speaking with host Greta Van Susteren about how Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's remarks concerning the 47 percent of the nation that don't pay federal income taxes were spot on, Buchanan called Barack Obama a "Fabian Socialist"…

NBC Tonight Show host Jay Leno made a joke Monday about President Obama and the economy that would be funny if it didn't hit so close to home. Talking about how the unemployment rate only fell last month because of the number of people that dropped out of the labor force, Leno quipped that the President is "encouraging more Americans to give up looking for work so the numbers will come down a…

Tonight, Barack Obama will make his seventh appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman, his second as Commander-in-Chief. This is a man who can’t make room in his busy campaign fundraising schedule for critical intelligence briefings, or his jobs council, or even a sit-down with the Prime Minister of Israel while Iran’s uranium centrifuges are whizzing away toward Armageddon. Instead…

In her writeup covering the Census Bureau's latest release of income and poverty data, Hope Yen at the Associated Press quoted University of Michigan economist Sheldon Danziger, who specializes in "Applied Policy, Labor Markets, Poverty and Social Welfare," describing the news that the official poverty rate was statistically unchanged, moving from 15.1% of all Americans to 15.0%, as "good news…

Former Democratic governor of Pennsylvania turned MSNBC contributor Ed Rendell said something on Tuesday's Hardball that is going to make a lot of jaws drop. "Even people who lost their jobs are better off" under Obama (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Poll cooking season is officially in full swing. The headline today at the Washington Post reads: "Among likely voters, Obama-Romney close." Dan Balz and Jon Cohen report that in a September 7-9 poll, "the (presidential) race remains close among likely voters, with Obama at 49 percent and Romney at 48 percent, virtually unchanged from a poll taken just before the conventions." Ah, but Obama…

"The Romney campaign slogan should be the title of Paul Krugman’s book which is 'End This Depression Now' because these are depression level [employment] numbers. And, if the Republican Party cannot win in this environment, it has to get out of politics and find another business." So said George Will on ABC's This Week Sunday (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Friday's NBC Today, less than two hours before another poor jobs report, co-host Matt Lauer touted a bold economic prediction: "Some of the analysts I've been reading have said that no matter who is president over the next four years, the economy will add about 12 million jobs just because of the cycle it's in." CNBC Mad Money host Jim Cramer agreed with the rosy scenario: "...a lot of pent-…

MSNBC broadcasts often have a “Twilight Zone” feel to them, but seldom more so than the Sept. 7, “Morning Joe.” Joe Scarborough and friends' reaction to the “weak” August jobs report was enthusiasm. The Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that morning that only 96,000 jobs were created, after 120,000 jobs were expected. The BLS also revised June and July numbers downward. The unemployment…

The Labor Department released its highly anticipated jobs report for August Friday, and the numbers were lousy. Although the unemployment rate dropped to 8.1 percent, that's because another 368,000 Americans dropped out of the labor force.

I really can't do much with this one beyond relaying the absurd particulars involved in PolitiFact's incredible conclusion that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker made a statement which was only "Half True" about unemployment in the various states in his speech last week at the Republican National Convention. On August 17, the government's Bureau of Labor Statistics opened its monthly Regional…

First, the bad news from a media coverage standpoint. All three major wire services covering today's report from the Department of Labor on initial unemployment claims characterized the seasonally adjusted result of 374,000 as "unchanged" from last week, but failed to note the 98%-plus probability based on the last 75 weeks of history (only one exception during that time) that the number will…

Today, per Nasdaq.com, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose by 4.49 points to 13107.48, the S&P 500 went up 1.19 points to 1410.49, and the NASDAQ gained 4.05 points to close at 3081.19.  The average of the three gains is less than 0.1%. That didn't stop the disseminators of CNN Money's email at the close of business from interpreting the result as being due to "signs of stronger U.S.…