What’s behind the seemingly sudden drop in the unemployment rate? While the economy stumbles along, no one would expect a sudden jump in employment. Job growth has averaged about 100,000 per month over the past six months, roughly consistent with other economic indicators suggesting slow growth. But the Labor Department …
Job growth continues to sputter—this morning’s jobs report shows that 12.1 million Americans are still out of work. Going against other economic indicators, the unemployment rate dropped to 7.8 percent. Economists are already looking into the drop, saying it seems to be a statistical fluke, because it doesn’t match up …
Trade and job creation came up in the presidential debate last night. A longstanding argument for blocking trade is that imports hurt jobs. This argument is wrong, and we can prove it. A paper published by The Heritage Foundation documents that the process of importing—offloading from ships and planes, transporting …
During last night’s debate between President Obama and former Governor Mitt Romney, Heritage’s domestic policy experts were live-blogging their analysis of the ideas discussed. Below are some of the highlights of our experts’ reactions to the major points made. We will be discussing the debate in a live Twitter chat …
During his first answer of tonight’s presidential debate, President Obama repeated a claim regarding employment numbers that, while true, makes his own record on jobs appear rosier than reality. Specifically, the president claimed, “over the last 30 months we’ve seen 5 million jobs created.” While that is true, the president’s …
President Obama recently said, “The most important lesson I’ve learned is you can’t change Washington from the inside.” That’s demoralizing to hear when a recession is bearing down on the economy—and it’s an inside job. The Congressional Budget Office has forecasted a fresh recession to hit next year if Taxmageddon, …
Dismal jobs reports and high unemployment continue to weigh down the U.S. economy, but there are a few bright spots. Most notable among them: energy production, particularly the shale oil and shale gas revolution. The technological one-two punch of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has created a remarkable energy boom …
The presidential debate yesterday moved to trade with China, with the usual rhetorical suspects—including “outsourcing” and the “trade deficit”—taking center stage. President Obama announced that his Administration had filed a complaint against China with the World Trade Organization. But a groundbreaking new report from Heritage proves that importing goods from …
