Help The Middle ClassNews and Information For The Heart Of America
More Temp Workers Are Becoming Permanent (USATODAY.com)
A growing number of businesses are converting temporary workers to permanent hires, heralding a warming job market.
“It’s definitely on the rise,” says Rob Wilson, president of Employco Group, a Chicago-area staffing firm.
Temporary jobs jumped by 48,000 in February to 2 million and are up 284,000 since September, the government said Friday. That’s a good sign: [...]
Workers Wait On Promise Of Jobs As Obama Agenda Stalls On Hill (Washington Post)
One month after President Obama declared jobs his “number one focus,” Congress has been unable to push through a single measure aimed at putting people back to work, as lawmakers haggle over how best to create jobs and how much to spend in the face of soaring budget deficits.
On Friday, Obama’s jobs agenda stalled on [...]
Largest US Banks Not Lending To Small Business (Business Week)
Small business customers at the nation’s 18 largest banks reported less success getting credit than customers of other commercial banks, according to a report released today by researchers at the National Federation of Independent Business conducted by Gallup.
One likely explanation for the difference: Big banks rely on automated credit scoring to make loan decisions, while [...]
DIAPPEARING JOBS: 10 Businesses In Trouble (Yahoo!)
People in almost every profession may feel like jobs are scarce right now. For many industries, this is a temporary situation. But jobs in some fields are expected to continue disappearing even after the economy picks up.
Is your industry on the decline? The federal government projects that a number of industries will lose jobs from [...]
Smaller Banks Now Offering More Private Student Loans (Bankrate.com)
Highlights
High-risk students may have better success at small banks, credit unions.
Community bank loans don’t offer the same benefits as student loans.
Shop around and ask big and small lenders for the full cost of a loan.
Consumers Are Squeezed As Inflation Outpaces Wages (Yahoo! News)
The spending power of families is being squeezed, government data showed Friday, highlighting doubts about consumers’; ability to drive the economic rebound.Workers saw their inflation-adjusted weekly wages fall 1.6 percent last year — the sharpest drop since 1990 — even as consumer prices rose only modestly. Slack pay and scarce job growth, along with tight [...]
They’re Hiring! Four Bright Spots In the Job Market (Yahoo!)
4 Fields That Are Still Hiring
By Lawrence Ross
Over the past year, bad news – bank failures, job loss, and a down housing market – has hovered over the economy like a dark cloud. But good news is on the horizon. According to Newsweek magazine, the stock market has rallied up 44% since March 2009. And [...]
Push To Shrink Big Banks Catches On In Congress (Politico)
The populist angst aimed at Wall Street banks is already spilling into Senate deliberations on regulatory reform, and a powerful new sentiment — big is bad — is being echoed by liberals and conservatives alike.
The anger at the nation’s financial behemoths is taking shape in a variety of ways, most notably in a bill from [...]
States Ready to ‘Tighten Belts’ In 2010 (USA Today)
States across the nation begin the year facing grim budget shortfalls that could mean a repeat of the service cuts, layoffs or furloughs and higher fees imposed in 2009, a USA TODAY survey shows.
States passed fiscal 2010 general-fund budgets totaling $627.9 billion, 5.4% less than a year earlier, says a study released last month by [...]
Will the “Jobs For Main Street Act” Really Produce Jobs (Yahoo!/AP)
When the Senate takes up a jobs bill later this month or early in February, the debate will center on whether it really will create jobs and be worth plunging the government tens of billions of dollars further into debt.
Republicans scoff at the “Jobs for Main Street Act” title that House Democrats put on their [...]
