The minimum wage is not indexed to the price level. It has been legislatively increased from time to time to make up for the loss in its real value caused by inflation. In nominal (current dollar) terms, the minimum wage has risen steadily from 25 cents to $7.25 an hour, where it has remained since … Continue reading
U.S. employers stepped up hiring in February, pushing the unemployment rate to a four year-low and suggesting the economy has enough momentum to withstand the blow from higher taxes and deep government spending cuts. Nonfarm payrolls surged 236,000 jobs last month, the Labor Department said on Friday, handily beating economists’ expectations for a gain of … Continue reading
because of population growth, getting back to where we were five years ago isn’t enough. To get back to full employment, we need to have millions more jobs than we had then. This led us to wonder: What would Scariest Jobs Chart Ever look like if you compared the past five years with comparable periods … Continue reading
ICI recently released their retirement plan data through Q3 of 2012. The chart of the day shows the real (inflation adjusted) total retirement market assets per working age citizen in the U.S. This includes IRA’s, defined contribution plans, private defined benefit plans, state and local government pension plans, federal pension plans, and annuities. The good … Continue reading
Seven in 10 Americans say they would vote “for” raising the minimum wage to $9 per hour if given the opportunity, while 27% would vote against such a bill. The proposal, made by President Barack Obama in his 2013 State of the Union speech, is backed by over 90% of Democrats and self-described liberals, and … Continue reading
American employers have a variety of job vacancies, piles of cash and countless well-qualified candidates. But despite a slowly improving economy, many companies remain reluctant to actually hire, stringing job applicants along for weeks or months before they make a decision. If they ever do. The number of job openings has increased to levels not … Continue reading
Over 4 Million Americans are considered now long term unemployed. They are not only disconnected from the work force, but may be also disconnected from the mainstream culture. If we can’t get them reconnected, we are looking at devastating costs to not only them, but our society as a whole. There is a 50% increase … Continue reading
It is true that young workers have higher unemployment rates than their older counterparts, at just about all levels of education. A recent report published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics on the job prospects of new college graduates, for example, found that as of October 2011, the graduates of the class of 2011 had … Continue reading
We have quarterly GDP data for 11 more OECD countries since our last post “World plunges into recession in Q42012“, and there have been some 2nd estimate revisions (such as the U.S). The chart below shows an improvement over the last post we made with the inclusion of more data points, but both the measures … Continue reading
Planned layoffs at companies rose for the second month in a row in February as the financial sector cut the most employees in over a year, a report showed on Thursday. Employers announced 55,356 planned job cuts last month, up nearly 37 percent from 40,430 in January, according to the report from consultants Challenger, Gray … Continue reading
A significant round of layoffs is happening at the Bellevue headquarters of T-Mobile USA just ahead of its merger with MetroPCS, according to people inside the company. Employees are expecting the cuts, which may affect more than 100 people in marketing and other groups, to happen Thursday, when conference rooms at the company are reserved … Continue reading
Between 2010 and 2020, immigrants are projected to make up about one-third of the growth among all households, according to a new report from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s Research Institute for Housing America. Specifically, the report projects that between 2010 and 2020, immigrants will account for 32.2% of growth among all households. They’ll make … Continue reading
Myth #1: Hordes of Minimum-Wage Workers Very few Americans are actually working for the federal minimum wage—it’s just 2.9 percent of all workers in the United States. In other words, 97 percent of American workers make more than minimum wage. Myth #2: The “Working Poor” Getting By on Minimum Wage More than half of minimum-wage … Continue reading
With the Dow Jones industrial average flirting with a record high, the split between American workers and the companies that employ them is widening and could worsen in the next few months as federal budget cuts take hold. That gulf helps explain why stock markets are thriving even as the economy is barely growing and … Continue reading
Infographics on the distribution of wealth in America, highlighting both the inequality and the difference between our perception of inequality and the actual numbers. The reality is often not what we think it is. via Wealth Inequality in America – YouTube.