The economy looks to be recovering. That’s the good news. The bad news is things are still getting worse. The Department of Commerce and the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released their report on second quarter gross domestic product and corporate profits for the second quarter of 2009 today and there was actually reason to celebrate. [...]
Employers cut 467,000 jobs in June, far more than expected and up significantly from June 2008 and May 2009, and the jobless rate hit 9.5 percent, a 26-year high.
The report from the US Department of Mass Labor shows that job loss actually increased in June for the first time since January. The 467,000 job losses were up from 322,000 in May and far worse than the 363,000 economists were expecting.
More bad news from the Labor Department: the people that are employed are actually making less money. The falling wages can be credited to furloughs, pay freezes and pay cuts imposed by employers across the country. Many employers have also have cut hours. The average work week in June fell to 33 hours, the lowest on record, dating to 1964. All in all, June was not such a good month to be trying to make money in the US.
Critics of President Barack Obama and his stimulus plan got a little added ammunition with the report’s release. Many Republicans and conservative Democrats have been increasingly critical of the President’s stimulus bill and given the newest reports, their claims have gotten even louder.
Read the full report from the Labor Department below.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) released their 2009 world economic outlook today. The report, put out each year by the IMF, details the current state and future of the world economy. The IMF is expecting the world’s economy to shrink and go backwards for the first time since World War II, which is tragic news [...]
The latest disgraced financier has been brought to justice. Allen Stanford, owner of the Stanford Bank, which recently had a complaint filed against it by the Securities and Exchange commission, was found today in Virginia. Whether or not Stanford was actually on the lamb from authorities is up for interpretation, but Stanford’s whereabouts are now [...]
Contrary to much popular belief, it appears the guys (and gals) at the top have been feeling the heat of the recent recession. Mercer, an independent company, performed a study that examined CEO salaries for a number of corporations ranging from large — companies making more than $40 billion a year — to small — [...]