March Statistics Send Mixed Messages on Economy
March unemployment statistics are out today from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the unemployment rate appears to have held steady at 9.7 percent. That's what it's been for all of 2010, so far.
On the whole, 162,000 jobs were added in March. McClatchy reports that this is the "strongest job growth since the nation entered recession in 2007 and the strongest confirmation yet that the U.S. economy is on the mend."
But take this job creation statistic with another statistic.
In the same month, U.S. bankruptcy filings reached their highest since 2005, with 158,141 American consumers and businesses filing for bankruptcy. That's a 35 percent increase from February, and a 20 percent increase from March 2009. According to Reuters, the new bankruptcy figure reflects "the unevenness of the economy's stabilization after the deepest recession since the 1930s."
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1 comments
DENNIS MARCUCCI
April 5, 2010, 7:26 a.m.
Here is the success called capitalism. We are told that the US economy gained 162,000 jobs,but 48,000 jobs that were gained were tempoary hires as part of the US census. So, 150,000 jobs have to be created every month in order to keep up with the population growth.More than 6.5 million have been out of work for at least six months, up 414,000 from last month. The US economy has lost 8.4 million jobs since the start of the downturn and would need to create 10.8 million jobs for the unemployment rate to return to pre-recession levels. To hear more, listen to my show at http://www.letsfightback.podomatic.com
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