US president Donald Trump has talked at length about restoring US coal mining jobs despite the failure of the industry as a whole due to the transition to renewables. On the chopping block? Funding for the national parks service. Hat tip to journalist Matt Yglesias for dipping into the St. Louis Federal Reserve’s FRED database to compare trends in coal …
US homebuilder confidence is at a recent high point
Shaking off any implications of impending trade wars with China or Mexico, as well as any doubts from rewiring 17% of the US economy through healthcare legislation, America’s homebuilders are expressing the most confidence in recent years. The reason for this given by CNBC analysts was that builders are anticipating a lax regulatory regime that will make housing starts much …
Private sector jobs after Obamacare
As the Republican Party in America presses toward radically rewriting the signature policy achievement of the Obama Administration, the battle cry has been that the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) cost American jobs. The charts from the Bureau of Labor Statistics do not necessarily reflect that claim.
Minimum wage increase in Seattle correlates with low unemployment
Barry Ritholz of Ritholz Wealth Management has been an ardent supported of minimum wage increase as a factor in economic growth. With this latest report on Seattle’s record low unemployment, he’s spiking the football on decoupling the increase in wages with job loss. We may have in Seattle the skunkworks for future minimum wage increases as a catalyst in job …
New nonfarm payroll jobs under the Obama administration
This chart shows ten years of job growth or loss in the U.S. economy. In it, you can see the tail end of the economic boom from debt and fake housing values, the crater that formed from paying the piper, and an almost constant trend of new jobs added after 2010.