Economic Indicators

Rightbloggers Revel in Romney Rout, But Good Job Numbers Put Them Back in Tinfoil

Rightbloggers had one of their best weeks of the campaign. First their candidate, Mitt Romney, bested President Obama in a debate, and then the Labor Department posted a drop in the U.S. unemployment rate. Both events convinced them of impending electoral victory, as the first proved that the Presid ... More >>

Stats Man Nate Silver Releases His First Book, The Signal and the Noise

Speaking with the Odds God

Guess Why Unemployment Just Went Down?

The new monthly jobs report states that unemployment went down to 8.1%, which would be cause for rejoicing in the streets, except for the reason for that decline:

New York Republicans Continue To Whine About Barack Obama Running For President. In Related News, The Sun Came Up Today

President Barack Obama will be in town tonight to attend a fundraising event to raise money for his ongoing presidential campaign -- because, well...he's running for president, and attending fundraisers is what people running for president do. Obama's doing what everyone who's ever run for president ... More >>

Big Apple's Unemployment Rate Hits 10% Again

We hate the phrase 'double-dip,' especially when it becomes an unfortunate reality.In September of 2009, as President Obama's stimulus package was beginning to leak into the economy, New York City's unemployment rate hit its peak of 10.1% and stayed there for six months. Since then, the job num ... More >>

Giuliani: Romney is Good, But He's No Giuliani (We Don't Understand It Either)

Endorsements are vital parts of a campaign's method of connecting with voters who would otherwise remain skeptical of a candidate's performance. They run as supplements to the Big Picture, stumping on behalf of a message that they believe in for the most part (search: Republican candidates' speeches ... More >>

Unemployment Is (Barely) Down

And now for even more reasons to be skeptical about the alleged economic recovery: Unemployment is down, but a smaller share of Americans are in the labor force and many have just given up on trying to find work. The newest Bureau of Labor Statistics data came out this morning, and the April jobs n ... More >>

Veto! Bloomberg Rejects Wage Bills, Says City Council Proposal Would Kill Jobs

As expected, Mayor Mike Bloomberg today vetoed the City Council's wage legislation, but unlike his past public comments on the matter, he didn't go so far as to compare the bills to Communism. Still, if the legislation passes, Bloomberg will sue. The proposals in question were the prevailing an ... More >>

America Added 120,000 Jobs in March: Is This Good or Bad?

In March, the U.S. added 120,000 more jobs, just released Bureau of Labor stats indicate. Now, this sure sounds like a lot, but compared to February -- when America's payroll swelled by 240,000 jobs -- this turns out not to be all that exuberant. But is this cause for concern or disappointment? ... More >>

Iraq and Afghanistan War Vets Facer Higher Unemployment: Survey

Members of the armed services who have come home face substantially higher unemployment rates than the government claims, an Iraq and Afghanistan advocacy group claims. And 37 percent of veterans surveyed say they know a fellow vet who committed suicide following deployment. The report comes from I ... More >>

National Unemployment Rate Falls to Three-Year Low

​Finally, some genuinely good news to celebrate: the U.S. Department of Labor's monthly job market snapshot says that the national unemployment rate has fallen to 8.3 percent, the lowest it has been in three years. January saw 243,000 jobs added to the market, mostly in business services, labo ... More >>

Comptroller John Liu: City Unemployment in Double Digits For Youth and Minorities

​Comptroller John Liu, a possible 2013 mayoral candidate, released a report yesterday that highlighted the disparities in unemployment rates across the city. At the end of 2011, the rate of unemployment was in the double digits for young people, blacks, and Hispanics -- and the rate was nearly ... More >>

New York Pols Respond to Obama's State of the Union

Hooray for Obama! Just keep your promises! That seemed to be the message that tied together several electeds' obligatory response statements to the president's State of the Union on Tuesday. After his speech ended, Runnin' Scared's inbox was flooded with reactions from local pols. So we gathered a ... More >>

Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, on the Living Wage Bill

When Speaker Christine Quinn presented her compromised version of the Living Wage Bill last week, we immediately wondered how it would affect retail-clothing workers, #47 on the Voice's list of the 100 Most Powerless New Yorkers. We got in touch with Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Whol ... More >>

Modest Jobs Recovery; Dolan to Become Cardinal; Deadly Hot Air Balloon Crash in New Zealand

The American workforce added about 200,000 jobs over December, doubling November's rate of job creation. The Wall Street Journal reports, "The new jobs were scattered over a range of industries, including manufacturing, retail, and even the battered construction sector," and "the sector that added t ... More >>

McDonald's Cashier Cleared of Assault Charges; Unemployment Down; Deadly Shooting on Q111

​Rayon McIntosh, the McDonald's cashier who was videotaped beating two unruly customers with a metal rod in October, was cleared of all charges after eleven days of grand jury testimony. The Daily News reports McIntosh, who had previously served almost ten years in jail for a manslaughter rap, ... More >>

Sale at Paola Hernandez

September Jobs Numbers Disappoint; Solyndra Loan Controversy; Cuomo to Pledge State Contracts

American employers added jobs in September, but not nearly enough to spur optimism. The New York Times reports there was a net growth of 103,000 jobs last month. Interestingly, "about a third of the jobs added by the private sector last month were actually 45,000 Verizon workers who had been on str ... More >>

Rick Perry's Texas Fantasyland

Rick Perry's Texas is a job-makin', low-taxin' oasis of economic growth. It's also a fantasy.

In 2011, We All May Have Jobs, Yet!

Cover from August 2009​According to the weekly report from the Labor Department, new jobless claims have fallen to the lowest level since July 2008, declining 34,000 for the week ending on Christmas Day. Apparently "seasonal layoffs" often pick up in that week, which seems particularly shitty, ... More >>

You Are 0.1 Percent More Employed Than Last Month

​Hey, New Yorkers: Things are looking up. The state Department of Labor has new numbers out, which the New York Times says show a dip in the city's unemployment rate. It's true! Our rate of downtrodden, jobless recession victims for October is down to 9.2 percent! Which means September (whose ... More >>

Even Michael Bloomberg Showed Up for Eataly's Opening

Getty​It's all Eataly all the time this week--yesterday, we showed you the line of people waiting to get in to Mario Batali's new mega Italian market and food court, and it turns out that everyone and their mother really was there. Micheal Bloomberg made an appearance, and ate some pizza, as h ... More >>

Unemployment Is Steady; Americans Settle for 4-Cent Raise

​In your unhappy Friday news, the U.S. Labor Department has reported more job losses than expected and a steady unemployment rate of 9.5% for July. This has to do to some extent with 143,000 temporary census workers being let go, with only 71,000 private-sector jobs being added.

New York Unemployment Down, National Jobless Claims Up, Dow Just Crazy

​The good news first: the city's unemployment rate was finally below 10 percent last month, the first time since August. Colleen C. Gardner, the state's labor commissioner, says that the number of private-sector jobs in the city rose by 21,000 in April, nearly triple the average increase for t ... More >>

Any More Jobs and We May Actually Have to Work

​Uh oh, people. The job market in New York City is officially perking up. Which means ... that old "nobody's hiring" excuse is just not going to fly. If you want to stay home and eat peanut butter and watch Law and Order all day, you better at least call yourself a "blogger" or something. Not ... More >>

Jon Kyl Continues GOP War on Unemployment Benefits

​The other day Republican Senator Jim Bunning waged a one-man war on, among other things, extension of unemployment benefits. Among the highlights: "Tough shit" and "[gives finger]." (And this was without being required to perform a real, talk-all-day filibuster, so you can't put it down to fa ... More >>

City Unemployment Rises to 10.6%, State to 9%

Well, we got a little break in December, when it dropped to 10 percent, but that's all done: Now the unemployment rate in New York City is 10.6 percent, according to the state labor department. That's the worst it's been in 17 years, and as bad as Oswego's, the only municipality in the state with d ... More >>

On the Jobless Front in NYC: Now You Can See How Poorly Your Own Neighborhood is Doing

One Depression-era approach to dealing with the unemployed.Those of you who insist on leavening your holiday happiness with doses of grim reality can now check out a new neighborhood-by-neighborhood breakdown of unemployment in New York City, courtesy of the Fiscal Policy Institute. The FPI clai ... More >>

The Bronx May be Up But Its Wages Are the Lowest

Here's a new study on city salaries that ought to be on top of Mayor Bloomberg's holiday reading pile and which helps explain why Bronx residents and political leaders were pushing so hard to win a living-wage for any new jobs created by the city at the mammoth Kingsbridge Armory: The Bronx has the ... More >>

New York Unemployment Goes Down, a Little!

Hooray, recession over! New York City unemployment went down point-three percent in November. It had been 10.3 percent, and is now a flat 10. And New York State unemployment dropped too -- from 9.0 to 8.6. This is from state Department of Labor seasonally adjusted private sector job numbers. We've ... More >>

Bloomberg World in Collision: As of Now, Bronx Saying No to Armory Project

Will Bloomie's world come crashing down in the Bronx?​Around City Hall this afternoon, fingers of blame will be pointing in all directions if - as seems likely at the moment - the mayor's proposal for the Kingsbridge Armory is voted down today. At last count, the Bronx council delegation and b ... More >>

Breaking: H&H Bagels Owner Indicted for Stealing Withholding Taxes and Unemployment Insurance Tax Evasion

Ty Hewitt/New York Magazine​Earlier this afternoon, Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau announced the arrest and indictment of Helmer Toro, the owner of H&H Bagels, for stealing withholding taxes and evading unemployment insurance tax in connection with his wholesale and retail busin ... More >>

U.S. Unemployment Goes Double Digit; Obama Will Sign Benefits Extension

As usual, New York got there first, recording 10.3 percent unemployment in September. Now the nation at large is catching up. The Department of Labor today reveals that U.S. unemployment is at 10.3 percent, up from 9.8 and the highest rate in 26 years. "The economy is recovering," insists an exper ... More >>

Number of Stimulus Jobs Produced: 30,383. Number of These in New York: 54

While the nation was preoccupied with hot air, the White House released its first list of actual jobs created thus far from the federal stimulus. Tallying up to a paltry 30,383 jobs, they've got a long way to go to reach the 3.5 million they'd hoped to create by the end of the year. To be fair, th ... More >>

Alan Greenspan supports extending unemployment benefits, but the Senate balks

In an appearance on This Week, former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan said he sees the unemployment rate rising above 10% and staying there for a while, but he's particularly concerned with the number of people who have been unemployed over six months. Greenspan says that prolonged unemployment can lead to ... More >>

Like the Sun, New York Unemployment Rises Again

We know you're getting tired of hearing it, but knowledge is power, they tell us, so be aware that the state Department of Labor just put out new figures and guess what, everything's worse. New York City's unemployment rose from 6.9 in January to 8.1 in February. We seem to be tracking the national ... More >>

Unemployment Up to 7.6 Percent, 598K Jobs Lost

The Bureau of Labor Statistics just released released job numbers for January, and the new is not good. Non-farm employment by 598,000 jobs last month, the biggest one-month drop since 1974, increasing the official unemployment rate from 7.2 to 7.6 percent. (That rate excludes longtime discouraged w ... More >>

Liveblogging the State of the City, If We Can Stand It

We'll give it a shot, anyway. The Mayor is going to give this annual speech today at Brooklyn College. Let's begin: 1:21 p.m. Brooklyn borough president/buffoon Marty Markowitz tells a few jokes. He has "declared Brooklyn a Republic," but collegially tells Queens beep Helen Marshall that "whatever ... More >>

When Elephants Fight: Not-quite-liveblogging the Brodsky Yankees Hearing

This morning in Yankeefunland: Assemblymember Richard Brodsky's surprise last-second hearing on the latest round of taxpayer-financed Yanks and Mets stadium bonds, with promised testimony (under duress) from Yankees president Randy Levine and city Economic Development Corporation chief Seth Pinsky ... More >>

Study: NYC Unemployment to 8.5% This Time Next Year

At Press Conference, Obama Cites Problems, Refers Vaguely to Solutions

Job Scene in 2006

A Special Advertising Section

1993

NYC Pols Play Numbers Game

Say What?

It's the Economy, Stupid

Kiss Your Career Goodbye

Welcome, new workers, to the world of McJobs

Bush’s Unemployment Line

Newest labor statistics show that at least snow jobs are on the rise

Pataki's Prattle

Job-Jingo Governor Proposes 'State-Killing' Budget

Labor's Cheap Date With Pataki

It's Solidarity—For the Time Being, Anyway