Unemployment

Perhaps using a preemptive strike to help combat the May jobs report to be released on Friday, MSNBC has already found an excuse for lost jobs, and an increased unemployment rate – storms, tornadoes and flooding.  According to a business report: “…homes or places of business have been destroyed in this year's wave of storms, tornadoes and flooding. That means thousands of workers in the South…

This just in, by way of St. Petersburg Times fact-checking website Politifact: when considering irrelevant and misleading employment statistics, Texas has not, in fact, created more jobs in the past five years than the rest of the country combined. Sure, when considering the relevant numbers - the ones that most honest observers would use - the claim, made by the Texas Public Policy…

Despite Obamanomics' failure to stimulate the economy, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman still believes Washington can solve all that ails us if we would just spend more money we don't have. Toward that end, the avowed liberal in his Monday New York Times column called for a new New Deal-like program to hire unemployed people to - wait for it - repair roads:

It would appear, according to the Associated Press's Christopher Rugaber, that something unusual had to explain why initial unemployment claims as reported by Uncle Sam's Department of Labor rose to a seasonally adjusted 424,000 during the week ended May 21 when they were expected to decline. In previous weeks, poor performances have been explained by DOL spokespersons as due to the unusually…

In a post time-stamped on Saturday at 12:16 p.m., CNNMoney.com has a story (HT Ed Driscoll via the PJ Tatler) headlined "Florida and Texas in jobs p*ssing match" (except that there's an "i" where I typed an asterisk). Since the story has been up for at least 12 hours (maybe longer, given that the its URL is dated May 20; Update, May 22, 5 p.m.: The comments at a cached CNN Political Ticker…

If you had any questions as to why Dylan Ratigan belongs on MSNBC rather than CNBC they were all answered Friday night. Appearing on HBO's "Real Time," Ratigan presented himself as a far-left commentator telling the audience of devout liberals, "This entire rhetoric machine from the Republican Party is predicated on an abandonment of arithmetic and fact" (video follows with transcript and…

Earlier today, NB's Tim Graham noted that the establishment press has given the silent treatment to a study by Timothy Conley of the University of Western Ontario and Bill Dupor of Ohio State University showing that the stimulus plan passed in February 2009 was a major net economic loser. In the first paragraph of the study, the authors revealed their core estimate that  the American Recovery…

You would think that a story about the awful summer job outlook for teens this year would be receiving more than a little media play. So far, it's not getting much at all. Here are key paragraphs from the relevant unbylined Associated Press report ("Summer 2011 could be worst ever in teen job market, study finds"):

On Friday's Early Show, CBS's Jeff Glor played up West Virginia Democrat Jay Rockefeller's browbeating of an oil company executive during a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee. The Senator interrupted Chevron Corporation CEO John Watson with a sarcastic reply: "Lovely statement, but do you understand how out of touch that is?" Glor first noted during his news brief 12 minutes into that 7…

PBS's Tavis Smiley offered his own half-baked assumptions Friday on the 2012 GOP presidential contenders. The far-left anchor dismissed the GOP field as a bunch of nobodies on the 9 a.m. EDT hour of CNN Newsroom. "You can't beat somebody with nobody," he quipped when asked what GOP contender poses the biggest threat to President Obama's re-election. "I don't see somebody yet that the…

As if more proof were needed about the minimum wage's devastating effects, yet another study has reached the same conclusion. Last week, two labor economists, Professors William Even (Miami University of Ohio) and David Macpherson (Trinity University), released a study for the Washington, D.C.-based Employment Policies Institute titled "Unequal Harm: Racial Disparities in the Employment…

What would you say was the best week in American history? If you're a man named Chris Matthews who gets a thrill up his leg for Barack Obama, you would say the week in which Osama bin Laden was killed by a Navy SEAL team in Pakistan (video follows with transcript and commentary):

If CNN's Roland Martin gives the same answer as a tea party conservative, you know you've asked him a pretty bizarre question. On Monday's 10 a.m. EDT news hour, CNN anchor Carol Costello asked the panel if Obama is now "unbeatable" due to the killing of Osama bin Laden, falling gas prices, and a positive May jobs report. Of course, the election is over one year away, not all of the possible…

The April jobs report showed 244,000 job gains, “surprisingly strong” numbers according to the Kansas City Star. Many national news outlets reported that jobs number as well as the rise in unemployment rate back to 9 percent in their headlines immediately reacting to the news. CNBC initially suggested that the unemployment rate “ticked” up because of higher participation in the labor force,…