Unemployment Rate

The level of youth unemployment, the highest since records began to be kept on the present system in 1978, is the great undiscussed issue in American politics. The numbers for July 2010, a month when youth employment usually reaches a seasonal high because of summer jobs programs, showed that fewer than half of those between 16 and 24 were employed — 48.9 percent — compared to a record high of 70 percent in 1988. The unemployment rate was 19.1 percent in 2010, compared to 9.6 percent in 2000.

If you're looking for job security, how about becoming a lawyer or financial analyst? These professions, according to Robert Half International, have lower unemployment rates than the current national average of 8.3 percent. The staffing firm says the unemployment rate in the first quarter was 1.9 percent for lawyers, 3.6 percent for software developers, 3.9 percent for financial analysts, 4.4 percent for accountants and 2.8 percent for human resource managers. (Someone has to be there to lay off everyone else.)

This probably won't come as a tremendous shock: Falling unemployment gives a boost to home prices, according to a report from the American Institute for Economic Research . The Massachusetts think tank said it looked at 20 metro areas from 1990 to 2009 and found that a 1 percentage point decrease in the unemployment rate results -- on average -- in a 3.7 percent increase in home prices. "This suggests that the sluggishness of the housing market recovery is directly related to the slow improvement in unemployment," writes research fellow Shelly X. Liang.

This probably won't come as a tremendous shock: Falling unemployment gives a boost to home prices, according to a report from the American Institute for Economic Research . The Massachusetts think tank said it looked at 20 metro areas from 1990 to 2009 and found that a 1 percentage point decrease in the unemployment rate results -- on average -- in a 3.7 percent increase in home prices. "This suggests that the sluggishness of the housing market recovery is directly related to the slow improvement in unemployment," writes research fellow Shelly X. Liang.

In a pinch of bright news for the economy, the East Coast snowstorms that paralyzed transportation and shut down thousands of businesses last month did far less damage than expected to the nation's labor market, allowing the unemployment rate to hold steady at 9.7 percent. Some economists had forecast that the storms would result in a setback on the jobs front, with unemployment jumping and payroll losses reaching 75,000 or more. Certainly, the recovery remains slow and uneven after the worst recession in more than a half-century.

The Obama administration and the liberal news media continues to keeps up their line that the unemployment rate is between 8 percent 9 percent. Don't believe it, as nothing could be further from the truth. The real unemployment rate ranges close to 15 percent or 16 percent because of the Obama's administration failed economic policies of the past three years. The administration's fuzzy math does not reflect the millions who simply quit looking for work or gave up on finding full time jobs.

Maryland's unemployment rate rose to 7.5 percent last month as employers continued to cut jobs, the Labor Department said Friday. The unemployment rate was 7.3 percent in November, according to revised figures from the federal government. Joblessness rose last month as employers cut 8,700 positions. The government estimates -- which are preliminary -- have been adjusted to try to account for normal seasonal changes in hiring and layoffs. All told, 220,000 Marylanders were actively looking for work last month and not finding it. The state's unemployment situation remains better than the nation's, which had a jobless rate of 10 percent last month.

Maryland's unemployment rate improved in October as employers added 3,100 jobs, a bit of good news for residents to chew on heading into Thanksgiving and — retailers hope — holiday shopping. The state's jobless rate dropped to 7.2 percent from 7.4 percent in September, the U.S. Department of Labor said Tuesday. The job growth estimates suggest that 60 percent of the net gains came from the private sector in October, with most of the rest coming from state government agencies.

Maryland's unemployment rate in September continued to inch upward for the fourth straight month, according to U.S. Labor Department data released Friday. But economists saw positive signs in the fact that more people reported that they were in the workforce. The Maryland jobless rate rose to 7.4 percent last month from 7.3 percent in August. This year's low was 6.8 percent in May. Because the jobless rate is based on a survey that asks whether people are employed or looking for work, the increase could indicate that discouraged workers who had been sitting on the sidelines have resumed their job search.

Maryland's unemployment rate jumped 0.5 percentage point in June despite the fact that a record number of Marylanders were employed during the month, as a surge in the number of seasonal workers seeking jobs expanded the labor pool and a dip in the auto industry helped hold down short-term job gains.The state's unemployment rate climbed to 5.4 percent from 4.9 percent in May, according to the Maryland Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation.But after adjustment for seasonal factors, the jobless rate rose only to 5.1 percent from 5.0 percent, reflecting the fact that much of the labor force surge will disappear when it's time for students to return to college.

Maryland employers added 1,500 jobs in March — thanks entirely to growth in the private sector — but the state's unemployment rate inched up as the pool of would-be workers expanded more rapidly. The jobless rate was 6.6 percent in March, up from 6.5 percent in February, the U.S. Department of Labor estimated Friday. That's because the labor force, the number of adults working or looking for work, grew by 4,200 people in March, according to the agency. An improving economic situation typically brings out more job seekers, as people who had been discouraged by earlier difficulties get back in the hunt.

The Obama administration and the liberal news media continues to keeps up their line that the unemployment rate is between 8 percent 9 percent. Don't believe it, as nothing could be further from the truth. The real unemployment rate ranges close to 15 percent or 16 percent because of the Obama's administration failed economic policies of the past three years. The administration's fuzzy math does not reflect the millions who simply quit looking for work or gave up on finding full time jobs.

Maryland's employers added 8,000 jobs in February, the latest sign of the state's economic recovery, labor officials said Friday. It's the sixth month in a row of jobs gains. The state's jobless rate remained unchanged at 6.5 percent from a month earlier, but that's nearly 2 percentage points lower than the 8.3 percent national average, preliminary figures from the U.S. Department of Labor show. "Employment is at its highest level since September 2008," Maryland Labor Secretary Alexander Sanchez said during a conference call.

The Obama administration is touting the latest unemployment numbers released last week by the U.S. Department of Labor as proof its policies are working. But a closer look at the actual number of able-bodied people who are willing to work, but are not, reveals a different picture. As economist John R. Lott has written, not only is the drop in the unemployment rate from 8.5 percent to 8.3 percent still half a percentage point higher than when President Barack Obama took office three years ago, the number of unemployed is higher.

Maryland employers added nearly 25,000 jobs last year, according to new estimates - the best performance since 2006, but one that still leaves the state with more than 80,000 jobs to make up, given the recession's losses. At this rate of employment growth, it will take Maryland until 2015 to dig out of the job-loss hole. Getting back to a truly normal employment situation would take even longer because population growth calls for the constant creation of new jobs. Economist Richard Clinch thinks Marylanders shouldn't count on faster job growth this year because efforts to rein in the federal budget are rippling through the state's sizable base of government contractors.

The economy added 200,000 jobs in December, and unemployment rate fell to 8.5 percent. Going forward, unemployment is not likely to fall much further and may rise again. Fourth quarter growth was exceptionally strong as the global economy recovered from first half disruptions such as the earthquake in Japan, but going forward economists expect growth to slow to about 2 percent. Job growth in the range of 130,000 should be expected to accommodate labor force growth, but it won't do much to lower the unemployment rate.

What were you doing most of last week? Were you working, looking for work, or keeping house?The question may sound innocuous enough, but because of its final three words, the U.S. unemployment rate was substantially underreported for nearly three decades until this January.That is because pollsters for the Bureau of Labor Statistics asked the question, in that form, only of women. For men, the question left off "or keeping house.""A lot of women chose to say that they had been keeping house, even though they might have worked part time or spent a few hours looking for work," bureau economist Peter Cattan said.

Carroll County's unemployment rate rose in December, in contrast to a statewide drop during the same period.The county rate rose from 5.7 percent in November to 6 percent in December. Maryland's rate dropped from 6.5 percent to 6.3 percent, the lowest monthly unemployment rate in 1992."In Carroll County, there were some layoffs in manufacturing," said Marco Merrick, a public information officer with the state Department of Economic and Employment Development.Theodora Stephen, manager of the Westminster DEED office, said Telemechanique was the only Carroll company to lay off a large number of workers.

Byron Wien has been publishing a New Year's list of possible economic and political "surprises" for years, often with impressive results. The idea is to identify events that are likely to happen but that the market believes have a low probability of occurring -- and that are therefore mispriced. Since the consensus outlook for 2012 is pretty miserable, most of his surprises are positive.  Wien is calling for oil to fall to $85 a barrel, for gold to return to $1,800 or for stocks to surpass 1,400 as measured by the S&P 500. Some of these would seem to be mutually exclusive.

Opponents of continuing the extension of unemployment insurance often make one of the following arguments: (1) the program is welfare for the undeserving; (2) it subsidizes leisure and is a major contributor to the high unemployment rate; or (3) the extension does little to create jobs. The critics have it wrong on all counts. The mischaracterization of unemployment insurance as welfare is a fundamental misunderstanding of the program — and insurance in general. Welfare is society's means of ensuring that the poorest among us have their basic needs taken care of, regardless of prior contributions to the system.