The Sun's Financial Diary

The economy has grown again, but the labor market showed no sign of improving. Actually, if you look at the the unemployment report released this morning, you will probably feel things are getting worse, not better.
In the latest job report, the government said that the nation’s monthly unemployment rate reached 10.20%, the highest level in [...]

It was October 3, 2008 when the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above the 10,000 level at 10,325.38. In the following five trading sessions, the widely watched index lost 1874.19, closing at 8,451.19 on October 10, 2008. Actually, October 3, 2008 was right in the middle of a steep plunge of the Dow. The index [...]

Despite signs that the economy has started to recover, U.S. employers continued to cut workers.
In the latest employment report released this morning, the Labor Department said nonfarm payroll shrank by another 263,000 in September, pushing the monthly unemployment rate to 9.8%, the highest level since June 1983.

In September, the employment in construction fell 63,000 while [...]

In case you forgot, today, July 24, 2009, the Federal minimum wage goes up to $7.25/hour from last year’s $6.55/hour.
Following is a plot of historical Federal minimum wages from 1939 to 2009 (the blue line). In 1939, the minimum wage was only 30 cents. The next adjustment didn’t come until 1945 when the minimum wage [...]

The labor market is still weak, but there’s little hope that the situation may start to improve as the pace of job cut slowed in April.
The Labor Department reported today that U.S. employers trimmed 539,000 nonfarm jobs in April 2009, the smallest monthly decline since October 2008, after ADP data showed similar decline early this [...]

The U.S. job market keeps weakening. According to the latest unemployment report released by the Labor Department this morning, U.S. employers slashed 651,000 nonfarm positions in February 2009, pushing the monthly unemployment rate to 8.1%, the highest level since December 1983. February marks the third straight month that job losses exceeded 600,000, the first time [...]

Major stock indices dropped to new multi-year lows on Wednesday as financial, again, and tech stocks weighed on the market. At the close, Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 89.68 points to 7,465.95, breaking the November 20, 2008 low. The last time the Dow closed lower was on October 10, 2002 when the blue-chip benchmark was [...]

The House has already voted to approve the $789 billion economic stimulus plan (called American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) President Obama has sought since he took office less than a month ago. The Senate will take on the bill later today and it could be sent to the President for his signature as soon [...]

Soon, it’s going to cost you a little more to mail that 1st class letter.
The USPS today announced the new prices for first-class mail. Effective on May 11, 2009, the postage of a one-ounce first-class mail will be 44 cents, up from the current price of 42 cents. Prices for other mailing services, such as [...]

The Labor Department reported on Friday that U.S. monthly unemployment rate hit 7.6% in January, the highest level since September 1992. The unemployment rate in December 2008 was 7.2%. In January, employers cut a total 598,000 jobs, the most monthly job losses in more than 34 years. Both the number of job losses and unemployment [...]