Unemployment

For yet another month, Maryland's unemployment rate inched upward, reaching 7 percent in July, the U.S. Department of Labor reported Friday. Maryland, however, saw an increase in 800 jobs last month, the first gain since February. "The fact that the decline ended is certainly good news," said Gus Faucher, senior economist with PNC Bank in Pittsburgh. "You would want to see stronger gains and you would also want to see that they improve over the next few months before you say that the weakness we had in the spring is over.

Maryland's unemployment situation took a turn for the worse this spring and hasn't bounced back, with new estimates suggesting that the state lost 11,000 jobs in June — among the worst performances in the country. The U.S. Department of Labor said Friday that only two states saw bigger declines in June — Wisconsin and Tennessee — after adjusting for seasonal variations, which some economists worry skews the numbers. It was Maryland's fourth month in a row of job declines by that measure, a sharp change after a strong winter.

On Thursday, the day the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare, a 47-year-old Baltimore woman went to the drugstore, and pulled out her debit card to pay for a prescription refill. But she didn't have enough money in the account to cover the $425 charge. So she asked the pharmacist and staff for a favor. "I asked them to break up the prescription to give me one-third," says the woman, who would not allow her name to be published because she didn't want to disclose her medical conditions.

They're facing high unemployment, depressed wages and loads of debt — and they're only in their 20s. Welcome to life after college. Though the labor market is recovering slowly, graduates this spring have only slightly better chances of landing jobs than grads did in the depths of the recession, experts say. Over the last year, unemployment has averaged 9.4 percent for college graduates under age 25. Meanwhile, researchers at the Washington-based Economic...

When Mark Chewning was a kid, he dreamed of being an artist. But at some point, the Baltimore resident's dream became all but dormant, giving way to about 27 years in the photograph-retouching business and a stint as supermarket deli clerk, as well as marriage, parenting, unemployment, divorce and self-doubt. Last week, Chewning, 54, was honored as the Student of the Year at Howard Community College. The single parent says his dream of becoming an artist will probably never come to fruition.

Europe is in recession. Portugal, Italy and Greece are basket cases. The British and Spanish economies have contracted for the last two quarters. It seems highly likely that France and Germany are in a double dip as well. Why should we care? Because a recession in the world's third-largest economy (Europe) combined with the current slowdown in the world's second-largest (China), spells trouble for the world's largest (that's still us). Remember, it's a global economy. Money moves across borders at the speed of an electronic impulse.

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.)

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.