Unemployment among men is near its all-time high on record. The economy shed another 467,000 jobs in June, as the unemployment rate edged up to 9.5 percent.  The rise in unemployment would have been higher except 155,000 people left the workforce, pushing down the employed percentage of the population (EPOP) by 0.2 percentage points to […]

The economy lost another 539,000 jobs in April, down from an average of 680,000 over the prior five months.  The unemployment rate rose to 8.9 percent, in spite of the fact that the household survey actually showed an increase in employment of 120,000.  On an age-adjusted basis, the current unemployment rate would be equivalent to […]

The age-adjusted unemployment rate is already above the 1982 level. The unemployment rate jumped to 8.5 percent in March as the economy shed another 663,000 jobs according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.  With the job loss reported for March, and upward revisions of 84,000 for the prior two months, the economy has lost an […]

The February employment report showed the labor market deteriorating at an even faster rate, with the unemployment rate rising from 7.6 percent to 8.1 in February.  The economy lost 651,000 jobs in the month, but job loss for the prior two months was revised up as well.  Job loss for the last three months is […]

As job losses hemorrhage, the American economy is in desperate need of a stimulus.  It is becoming increasingly clear that Congress must work rapidly to approve some version of President Obama’s plan. Then, Obama and the Congress should very quickly turn to taking a second, temporary step to create more jobs: creating incentives for companies […]

“Our community is expanding: MRZine viewers have increased in number, as have the readers of our editions published outside the United States and in languages other than English.  We sense a sharp increase in interest in our perspective and its history.   Many in our community have made use of the MR archive we put […]

The overall consumer price index fell by 1.0 percent in October, driven by an 8.6 percent drop in energy prices.  The core CPI also fell in October, declining 0.1 percent primarily as a result of a 1.0 percent drop in apparel prices.  Over the last quarter, the CPI has fallen at a 4.4 percent annual […]

Virtually the only certainty in the current financial situation is that there will be more problems ahead.  Those who controlled the levers of economic and financial policy neglected their greatest responsibility, which was to ensure an orderly financial market and prevent exactly the sort of collapse that we are now seeing.  This was a policy […]

CPI Rises 0.4 Percent in January, Core Edges Higher Higher inflation is the cost of the high dollar policy of the last decade. The overall consumer price index rose by 0.4 percent for the second straight month in January, pushed up by 0.7 percent increases in both food and energy prices.  The January increase brings […]