Employers throttled back on layoffs in July, cutting just 247,000 jobs, the fewest in a year, and the unemployment rate dipped to 9.4 percent, its first decline in 15 months. It was a better-than-expected showing that offered a strong signal that the recession is finally ending.
It may not be fair, but the likelihood of climate legislation passing the Senate in November (or later) depends critically on such seemingly unrelated matters as whether the Senate can pass health care reform and what the state of the economy is. So the latest job report — along with other recent economic news like the better-than-expected GDP report from Monday — is a big deal:
The new snapshot, released by the Labor Department on Friday, also offered other encouraging news: workers’ hours nudged up after sinking to a record low in June, and paychecks grew after having fallen or flat lined in some cases.
To be sure, the report still indicates that the jobs market is on shaky ground. But the new figures were better than many analysts were expecting and offered welcomed improvements to a part of the economy that has been clobbered by the recession.
We’ve till got a long way to go to dig ourselves out of the economic hole abyss Bush-Cheney put us in, but we appear to have bottomed — thanks in part to the stimulus — and I am cautiously optimistic that we will be able to get 60 votes for ending the inevitable and immoral conservative filibuster the Senate will need to overcome to pass the climate and clean energy bill.
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The dip in the unemployment rate – from June’s 9.5 percent – was the first since April 2008. One of the reasons the rate went down, however, was because hundreds of thousands of people left the labor force. Fewer people, though, did report being unemployed.
All told, there were 14.5 million out of work in July.
Also in the same link or article.
What was the unemployment rate early 2008? 5%???
Does this mean that in order to get a climate bill passed the amazing shrinking health care bill that increasingly benefits the insurance companies and the drug companies but gives the shaft to the public must pass to get the climate bill?
[JR: I always said that if you didn't like how much the climate bill got watered down, you'll love health care reform.]
Uh oh Joe, Sen. Martinez is retiring… he was one of the Republicans we were hoping to get on board…
http://news.yahoo.com/ s/ ap/ us_senate_martinez_resigns
Chris Martenson smells a rat:
http://www.chrismartenson.com/ blog/ unemployment-report-distortions/ 24080
[JR: What are you a birther? This is just inane stuff. The statistical agencies reports the statistics. That's it.]