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: [...]
Bridges Finally Wins Best Actor – The Hurt Locker Makes History: The 82nd Annual Academy Awards® (Yahoo! Movies)
LOS ANGELES – The Iraq War drama “The Hurt Locker” won best picture and five other prizes Sunday at the Academy Awards, its haul including best director for Kathryn Bigelow.
Bigelow is the first woman in the 82-year history of the Oscars to earn Hollywood’s top prize for filmmakers.
“There’s no other way to describe it. It’s [...]
Feds Shut Down 3 More Banks. 25 Closed So Far This Year (USA Today)
Regulators on Friday shuttered banks in Florida, Illinois and Maryland, boosting to 25 the number of bank failures in the U.S. so far this year following the 140 brought down in 2009 by mounting loan defaults and the recession.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. took over Sun American Bank, based in Boca Raton, Fla., with $535.7 [...]
Jobless Claims Down, But Economy Stilled Mixed (USA Today)
New claims for unemployment benefits fell last week in a sign that layoffs may be easing as the economy slowly recovers, but economic reports are mixed.
The Labor Department said Thursday that initial claims for unemployment insurance fell 29,000 to a seasonally adjusted 469,000. That nearly matches estimates of 470,000.
Still, improvement in the job market is [...]
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 [...]
MORTGAGE WOES: 67% Of California Home Sellers Could Not Pay Their Mortgages (The Orange County Register)
Most California homesellers — a whopping 67% – who sold their homes last year couldn’t pay their mortgages, a survey by the California Association of Realtors shows.
“For the most part, the bottom line was, ‘I’m being squeezed out of my home because I couldn’t make my mortgage payments,’ ” said Leslie Appleton-Young, the association’s chief economist.
In response to another question on specific [...]
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 [...]
POLITICAL ANALYSIS: 5 Things To Watch For At The Summit (The Washington Post)
With the bipartisan health care summit at Blair House blotting out the political sun today, we are dedicating the entire “Morning Fix” to the five things you should watch for at today’s meeting. (Need a sixth thing to watch? How about the Fix and the Post’s Ezra Klein previewing the big event? On [...]
RECESSION NOT OVER YET! – Home Sales Fall To A Record Low In January (CNN)
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — Sales of new homes plunged in January to the lowest level on record, government figures showed Wednesday.
The seasonally adjusted annual rate of new home sales plummeted 11.2% to 309,000 last month, compared with a revised rate of 348,000 in December, the Census Bureau said. That’s a decline 6.1% from January 2009.
It [...]
Toyota’s President Takes ‘Full Responsibility’, But The Problems Don’t End There (New York Times)
WASHINGTON — Toyota’s elusive president goes before a House committee on Wednesday, one day after the company’s highest ranking American executive came under blistering criticism for its response to problems with sudden unintended acceleration in its cars.
The president of Toyota, Akio Toyoda, will take “full responsibility” when he appears before the House Committee on Oversight [...]
