Tag: Economy

Breaking: Unemployment Drops to 7.8% in September

Trish

You could hear the collective Republican “rut-roh” from here. The last thing Romney and the GOP want is for the economy to improve. Sorry guys but your worst nightmare is happening.

…the Labor Department reported Friday that U.S. employers added 114,000 jobs in September and the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 7.8 percent, the first time the rate dropped below 8 percent in three years…

This time, the improvement was not due to people dropping out of the workforce but “actually reflects a substantial increase in employment…”

Romney Says Obama is Wrong To Try To Put People Back to Work

Trish

His whole campaign is based on getting people jobs again, putting people back to work.

— Mitt Romney, criticizing Pres. Obama for his efforts to increase employment. In contrast, Romney said it’s the personal responsibility of the unemployed to change their job status: “My campaign is about helping people take more responsibility and becoming employed again, particularly those who don’t have work.”

State, Local Governments’ ‘Secret Austerity’ Maintaining Recession

Buck Banks

Ben Polak and Peter K. Schott make a compelling argument in the New York Times that this recession differs from the preceding two downturns because of under-employment by state and local governments:

Without this hidden austerity program, the economy would look very different. If state and local governments had followed the pattern of the previous two recessions, they would have added 1.4 million to 1.9 million jobs and overall unemployment would be 7.0 to 7.3 percent instead of 8.2 percent.

Why is this happening? One possibility is that we are witnessing a secular change in state and local politics, with voters no longer willing to pay for an ever-larger work force. An alternative explanation is that even though many state and local governments are constrained not to run deficits, they can muddle through a standard recession without cutting jobs. But when hit by a huge recession like that of 1981 or the latest one, the usual mix of creative accounting and shifting in capital expenditures cannot absorb the shock, and jobs have to go.

A Recession of Republicans’ Making

Trish

4.4%

Projected growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in 2013, if Congress avoids another debt ceiling fiasco when they debate extending the Bush tax cuts on income over $250,000 after the November elections. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO), who made the estimates, also projects 2 million new jobs next year if Congress acts responsibly. If not, the CBO says the economy will go back in recession.

Point of Order: Obama Wants to Give Everyone a Tax Break

Trish

PointofOrder

Whether ignorance or deliberate spin is to blame, we keep hearing that Pres. Obama wants to end the Bush tax cuts for those earning more than $250,000 annually. This is true. And false, false, false.

The president is proposing, as he has since he took office and knew Bush’s tax cuts would expire during his first term, to end the tax breaks on family incomes above $250,000.

That means everyone pays at the lower rate on the first $250,000 they earn. So if your family earns $220,000, you continue to pay at the Bush rate on your entire income. If you earn $280,000, then you continue to pay at the Bush rate on $250,000 and pay at the higher, Clinton-era rate on $30,000.

As Daily Finance’s Bruce Watson explains:

When discussing the tax code, most analysts and pundits — not to mention average citizens — focus on the highest rate that an individual pays. One rarely hears about the fact that everybody pays only 10% tax on their first $8,700, 15% on everything between $8,701 and $35,350, and so forth. In other words, a millionaire pays the exact same amount in taxes on that piece of their income as someone who makes $35,350 per year…or $85,000, or $150,000. (Before deductions, of course.)

It’s not hard to see why tax issues are drawn along wealth lines — after all, creating barriers between the rich and the middle class makes for good headlines and hot political battles. In truth, though, the line isn’t between cutting taxes for the rich and cutting them for the middle class; it’s between cutting taxes for the rich, and cutting taxes for the rich more.

Emphasis added

Update: The misstatement bothers Robert Reich too.

The Guy Whose Economic Advice We Are Least Likely to Take

Trish

This is roughly equivalent to John Edwards publishing a book on marital fidelity, or Ron Paul publishing a book on racial tolerance.

Pundit Henry Decker, in a column called, “Not A Joke: Bush To Publish Book On Economic Growth.” The book is part of an effort to rehabilitate the reputation of former Pres. George W. Bush, whose policies of mortgage and finance deregulation, and of cutting taxes at the top of the income scale while launching two wars plunged the country into recession.

Housing Prices Rising

Trish

<h3>$141,300</h3>

<h2>Median price of a home in the South Florida counties of Palm Beach, Broward, and Dade, where Zillow.com says the market has bottomed out and prices are starting to rise. The area was one of the hardest hit by the housing bubble, but Zillow says prices are up 1% over last year and are expected to rise 6% in the next.</h2>