Pity the poor CEOs of America. Last year, America’s biggest companies increased their revenues –and their profits – by substantial amounts, yet the CEOs leading these companies saw only a meager increase in their …
Jobs
Why We Need to Tackle the Skills Gap
I was struck this morning by two Op-Ed pieces: first, Larry Summers prescription for how to nurture the recovery in the FT, and Steven Rattner’s parsing of some new data on American inequality which found – surprise! – the …
America’s Least and Most Expensive Cities to Do Business In
Corks must be popping in Cincinnati—albeit from bottles of Bonnaire—now that the Queen City has finished first in the U.S. in a recent ranking of the costs of doing business. That’s first as in cheapest: Thanks in part to especially low property taxes, transportation costs and leasing rates, Cincinnati was rated the least-costly city …
Why Men Will Continue to Dominate the Jobs Recovery
Men might have lost more jobs during the recession than women did — but a new report shows that it’s women who are struggling more in the financial recovery.
The Little Recovery That Could…Well, Maybe
Why Is Unemployment Falling So Fast When Growth Is So Slow?
The U.S. unemployment rate has fallen from 9% to about 8% in the last year, to the delight of everyone from job seekers to the Obama re-election team. But traditional economic theory tells us that shouldn’t have happened unless the economy was growing by double its current 2.5% rate.
We’ve Suffered a Jobless Recovery. Is a Recovery Without Growth Next?
The economic-news meme of 2011 was the “jobless recovery.” This was a term used by pundits to describe the U.S. economy, which, measured in GDP, began growing again in the third quarter of 2009. Unemployment, however, remained stubbornly high. We were producing more and better goods and services with fewer total workers.
This …
Why the Fed’s Latest Interest-Rate Strategy Won’t Have Much Effect
Sterilized bond buying could help lower interest rates and boost the economy a bit without adding to inflation, but don’t expect a major impact.
Why A Stronger Economy Probably Won’t Translate Into A Raise — Yet
Last Friday’s jobs numbers came in strong, particularly in important areas like manufacturing, on which President Obama is staking much of the economic component of his re-election campaign. If voters start to feel more prosperous than they have over the last few years, it will certainly help him at the polls in November. But in order …
227,000 New Jobs Is Good. But Has the Economy Reached Escape Velocity?
Economy watchers talk often about economic recoveries requiring a “virtuous circle.” In such a scenario, job growth leads to higher wages and increased consumer demand, which in turn leads to more job growth.
Jobs Numbers and the Economics of Emotion
Consumer confidence is up, and the new jobs numbers — the U.S. added 227,000 jobs in February, the third straight month of 200,000-plus gains — show that the U.S. economy continues to improve. Does that mean we are going to finally start seeing a shift out of the era of fearful, volatile markets that we’ve been in for over three …
Reactions to Tomorrow’s Employment Report, Today
Each month the Government and private organizations release dozens of statistics that help market participants and policy makers judge the health of the economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistic’s monthly Employment Situation Report …