What is the big fucking deal? People are poor now, more people than ever. Yes, they have jobs — shitty jobs. Most likely, more than one job, which might make it look better than it is. People are killing themselves, running just to stay afloat. Do they want medals? Fuck these cheerleaders, the people in this administration and their Wall St. advisers. They should live our lives for just one day:
If you’ve watched Wall Street lately, you know global tumult has rattled investors. But if anyone’s looking for encouraging economic news, look no further than the new figures from the Labor Department on initial unemployment claims.The number of people who applied for U.S. jobless benefits fell 23,000 to 264,000 in the week that ended Oct. 11, hitting the lowest level since April 2000, showing that employers are laying off few workers, according to government data released Thursday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had expected initial claims for regular state unemployment-insurance benefits to bump up to 289,000 in the latest weekly data from 287,000 in the prior week.The four-week average of new claims, a smoother barometer of labor-market trends, fell by 4,250 to 283,500, also reaching the lowest level since 2000, the U.S. Labor Department reported.That’s not a typo – jobless claims have improved to a level unseen in 14 years,
More people working than in the last 14 years for less pay (in terms of real dollars) than they’ve received in the last 50. And of course 90% of the drop in jobless benefits is a result of stopping jobless benefits to people out of work. Bogus metrics cooked to benefit the 1%.
Was there ever a point when Rachel Maddow wasn’t a shill for the establishment? Or has she just been that way since Obama got elected?
I think she’s always been that way.
According to some fairly intelligent bean counters, if the 1.7 million people currently employed at the minimum wage were instead earning $10.10 per hour the taxpayers would save about $6 billion dollars a year in government subsidies. (Food stamps and the like.) What that means is that we the taxpayers are now paying part of the wages that minimum wage earners are making in the form of government subsidies so that the for-profit corporations can rake in bigger profits. But it’s worse then that because the corporations also want their tax rate lowered from 35% to 25%. And lots of Democrats including Obama are on board with that. Vote ’em all out and start again.