jobs

The Good and Bad Housing News in the February Jobs Report

One of the challenges to economic recovery in the U.S. has been the glut of houses on the market as a result of the burst housing bubble that caused the great recession in the first place. A robust, job-creating recovery typically relies heavily on the construction sector for a substantial portion of the jobs created–I’ve seen numbers …

Stay In School, Kids: A Look At Unemployment By Education

Things are bad, but they are much worse if you didn’t go to college. Below is a quick rendering of the U.S. unemployment rate, as a percentage of total working population, for people over the age of 25 with different levels of educational attainment. As you can see, this economic collapse has only made the spreads scarier. Want a job? …

The Debt Limit Compromise: A Likely Short-Term Drag on Jobs

Exit polls from last November’s midterms left little ambiguity about the issue that motivated most voters: 63% listed “the economy” as the most important issue. When asked the top priority for Congress in 2011, only 40% said “reducing the budget deficit,” while 55% said “cutting taxes” or “spending money to create …

Obama More Pessimistic on the Economy, But Not Pessimistic Enough

“Headwinds” from the first half of 2011 are holding back the recovery, President Obama and his advisers argued on Friday, reacting to an undeniably abysmal June jobs report. While Obama didn’t dismiss the discouraging data as a “bump in the road to recovery” as he did in May, the White House is trying to blame transitory factors such as …

Rick Perry’s Jobs Problem, Part II

Governor Rick Perry’s office called in response to my post on his jobs record last week. His spokesperson, Catherine Frazier, wanted to defend Perry’s business-luring tax credit funds, and I’ll get to that below. But first, some more context on the subject of Texas and job creation, which will be central to the 2012 campaign if …

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