Long-term unemployment benefits in California should remain at 99 weeks in California until June, according to an Employment Development Department analysis of the payroll tax and jobless bill signed by President Barack Obama Thursday. Initial descriptions of the legislation suggested long-term benefits would be cut to 73 weeks under a compromise approved by Congress earlier … Continue reading
You know that old saying, “When the U.S. sneezes, Canada catches a cold.” It still applies. The United States remains our biggest trading partner. What happens there affects everything from our tourism to our exports. But now, Canada is facing a bigger threat to its economic health. It’s called Dutch Disease — and it’s complicated … Continue reading
A tax credit? For small businesses? To create jobs? And raise wages? Wow! What a great idea! What’s not to like? Quite a bit, in fact. In his fiscal 2013 budget proposal, President Obama has suggested a temporary 10% tax credit designed to spur job creation and wage growth among small businesses. It’s a fine … Continue reading
At the White House Daily Press Briefing Tuesday Carney said “The President didn’t turn down the Keystone Pipeline.” He said “There was a process in place with long precedent, run out of the State Department because of the issue of a pipeline crossing an international boundary, that required an amount of time for proper review … Continue reading
Congress has passed and President Obama has signed extension of federal extended unemployment benefits programs and the payroll tax cut. Federal extended benefits for long-term unemployed workers will be gradually reduced to 73 weeks in the states with the highest rates of unemployment and 63 weeks elsewhere. Here’s a summary of the changes: Extended Unemployment Tiers 2012 … Continue reading
“No president since World War II has been re-elected with an unemployment rate over 7.2 per cent.” That’s a snippet of conventional wisdom that’s been floating around almost since the day that Barack Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, a month that ultimately closed out with an ominous unemployment rate of 7.8 per cent – … Continue reading
Kannan Ramanujam, president of a well-known multinational IT company headquartered in the US is in the process of preparing a SWOT analysis for his company’s new operations. The choice is between offshoring its activities and utilising a third-party vendor. The company has offshored most of its service delivery processes, both directly by setting up its … Continue reading
The Obama administration is undertaking an athletic push to promote manufacturing employment in the United States: proposing giving manufacturers new tax breaks, closing loopholes that benefit companies that send manufacturing jobs offshore, expanding worker training programs and increasing trade enforcement, for instance. The administration underscored manufacturing’s first-among-equals status when announcing its proposed overhaul of the … Continue reading
President Barack Obama on Wednesday signed into law the agreement passed by Congress last week to extend the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits while preventing a cut in payments to Medicare doctors. The signing, announced in a White House statement, resolves those issues for the rest of 2012, beyond the November election in which … Continue reading
The recent payroll tax deal struck by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama will keep an average of $1,000 in the pockets of 160 million American families through 2012 in addition to enabling tens of millions of seniors to continue seeing the doctor of their choice under Medicare. It also provides unemployment benefits for … Continue reading
The Obama administration keeps reporting supposed good news on the employment front. Americans sense that something is not quite right about the rosy official numbers, and a series of independent reports confirms their skepticism. On Feb. 16, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report on long-term unemployment showing that the past three years have … Continue reading
This chart tells you just about everything you need to know as you prepare to vote in 2012. Prepared by the Republican Study Committee, it depicts the percentage of Americans in the labor force from January 2005 (commonly known as the “good old days” through January 2012. The decline in the number of working Americans … Continue reading
It seemed next to impossible last year — but, it’s a new year, and Congress finally decided to come together and pass something. A pretty big, $143 billion something. Fox Business: “Both the House and Senate have passed legislation extending the payroll tax cut for 160 million workers. It also extends long-term jobless benefits through … Continue reading
The United States economy is on the road to recovery, the White House said Friday, with stronger job growth expected this year. But income inequality and Europe’s debt crisis could still pose challenges, according to a report released by President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. Before Obama even took office, America had lost 4.4 million … Continue reading