The U.S. Labor Department announced that 243,000 jobs were added in January, sending the unemployment rate to 8.3%, its lowest point since Feburary 2009. more ›

With more people clamoring for food stamps and turning benefits centers into fire hazards by waiting in line all day, creating human gridlock that the FDNY had to alleviate, the city is finally going to do something about it: Hire more people to distribute the benefits. Human Resources Administration Deputy Commissioner Patricia Smith told the City Council, "The alleviation of crowding at our office is a high priority." more ›

Time was an industrious American with true grit and a little moxie could pull him or herself up by his or her bootstraps, starting off with nothing but ambition in the mailroom and advancing all the way to the F...B...I. There's considerable debate over when this was the norm, but we clearly remember seeing it documented in such motion pictures as The Talented Mr. Ripley. Well, sorry to disillusion you, but that was the old America, according to a number of troubling studies showing that the United States is now the least upwardly mobile of comparable nations like Canada. Well, isn't it high time we went up and plundered liberated those smug bastards? more ›

The rumors are true! Governor Cuomo's office has sent an op-ed written by the governor expressing his support for tax reform. You can read the whole thing below, but here's one key paragraph: "In New York under the permanent tax code, an individual making a taxable income of only $20,000 pays the same marginal tax rate as an individual making $20 million. It’s just not fair. While New York’s earned income tax credit, child care credit, and high standard deduction help working poor families, New York has left the middle class with an undue burden which also hinders our economic recovery." more ›

Today, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that unemployment fell to 8.6% in November, the lowest since March 2009. According to Bloomberg News, "Payrolls climbed 120,000, after a revised 100,000 increase in October, with more than half the hiring coming from retailers and temporary help agencies." more ›

Sure, we're spending billions on holiday season shopping, but food is expensive in NYC and incomes aren't rising. Which is why there are enterprising individuals like one 23-year-old who used Match.com to find men to take her out to fancy restaurants five days a week. more ›

Even though everybody knows that the recession was over years ago, some people are still feeling its impact, especially those working for the much-demonized public sector, which is shedding jobs under the increasing pressure for fiscal austerity. However, there is one group that is hit particularly hard by the loss of public-sector employment: African Americans. The Times reports that one in five black workers are employed by the public sector, and they're also one-third more likely to hold such a job than whites. more ›

Who cares if 46.2 million Americans are in poverty? Pulitzer Prize-winning NY Times op-ed columnist Maureen Dowd lives the dream and goes to the Manolo Blahnik sample sale with Vogue contributing editor Andre Leon Talley for her column today. For real. more ›

The U.S. Department of Labor announced that 80,000 jobs were added last month, which means the unemployment rate has dropped to 9.0%, from 9.1% in September. However, don't get too excited, because economists were hoping for more jobs. more ›

The U.S. Commerce Department released the third quarter economic growth numbers: "Real gross domestic product— the output of goods and services produced by labor and property located in the United States— increased at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in the third quarter of 2011 (that is, from the second quarter to the third quarter) according to the "advance" estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 1.3 percent." So, is this good news? more ›

So you know how the recession has supposedly been "over" since June 2009 even though it really doesn't feel like it? There is a reason for that and it isn't just that we've got unemployment hovering around nine percent. Two former Census officials have just released research that shows that the "Real median annual household income has fallen significantly more during the economic recovery period from June 2009 to June 2011 than during the recession lasting from December 2007 to June 2009." In particular? Since 2007, the real median annual household income has dropped by 9.8 percent. more ›

The United States added 103,000 jobs in September, which was more than what economists expected (Bloomberg News' survey put the increase at 60,000). Unemployment is still at 9.1%, which is what it was in August. more ›

Top Democrats were upset that President Obama wanted to tax wealthy Americans, because as our own Senator Chuck Schumer put it, making $250,000 a year doesn't make you wealthy in New York. So now they are offering a new plan to tax the rich: A 5.6% tax on those making $1 million or more a year, which would raise about the $447 billion needed to fund Obama's American Jobs Act. more ›

The big Occupy Wall Street march which drew thousands to lower Manhattan ended calmly, but things between the protesters and the NYPD have escalated in the past hour or so: Occupy Wall Street spokesman Patrick Bruner says, "Reports of our medics treating several pepper sprayed protesters. Mounted police officers. Barricades block Broadway and Liberty." And then there's this video of a high-ranking NYPD official (wearing a white shirt) batoning protesters who are trying to breach a barrier: more ›

Warren Buffett, "very decent" billionaire who wants higher taxes, isn't worried about a double-dip recession. The Oracle of Omaha told Andrew Ross Sorkin, "It's very, very unlikely we'll go back into a recession... We're coming out of a recession." So there! more ›

President Obama is trying to drum up support for the American Jobs Act, his $447 billion plan to "put more people back to work and put more money in the pockets of working Americans." While there don't seem to be enough votes in the Senate to pass it, maybe this will change some politicians' minds: Bloomberg News asked economists about the plan and it turns out they think the program "would help avoid a return to recession by maintaining growth and pushing down the unemployment rate next year." more ›

Occupy Wall Street is streaming footage of Oscar-winning actress and activist Susan Sarandon at the camp site. Via Christie Rotondo, Sarandon said, "It never changes from the top, it only changes from the bottom, and this is great." more ›

Yesterday, a trader in London appeared during an interview on BBC and said, "I go to bed every night and dream of another recession," after pointing out, "For most traders we don't really care about having a fixed economy, having a fixed situation, our job is to make money from" the economic woes in Europe. Independent trader Alessio Rastani added, "The governments don't rule the world - Goldman Sachs rules the world." You can watch him shock the presenters here: more ›

Yesterday, we found out that billionaires like Tea Party fan David Koch and Mayor Bloomberg are getting more billionaire-y. Now the U.S. Census reveals that one in five New York City residents lives in poverty. The NY Times reports, "From 2009 to 2010, 75,000 city residents were pushed into poverty, increasing the poor population to more than 1.6 million and raising the percentage of New Yorkers living below the official federal poverty line to 20.1 percent, the highest level since 2000. The 1.4-percentage-point annual increase in the poverty rate appeared to be the largest jump in nearly two decades." more ›

During his weekly radio address this morning, Mayor Bloomberg looked into his crystal ball and saw a grim, violent future if the masses don't get a job. "We have a lot of kids graduating college, can't find jobs," Bloomberg said. "That's what happened in Cairo. That's what happened in Madrid. You don't want those kinds of riots here." Especially not if you live in one of those extravagant mansions that angry mobs just loooove burning down, amirite Mike? The mayor then went on to voice his qualified support for Obama's jobs bill, acknowledging that "at least he's got some ideas on the table, whether you like those or not." Hopefully those ideas include federal funding for fireproof panic rooms. more ›

Today the Census Bureau released its report [pdf] on income, poverty and health insurance, and doggone it, would you believe these statistics are not specifically too good? According to the most recent census numbers from 2010, approximately 1 in 6 Americans are impoverished. That's 46.2 million people, up from 43.6 million in 2009—15.1 percent of the population were below the poverty line last year, the highest percentage since 1983. But hey, that was last year. We've still got more than three months left in 2011 to turn this thing around! more ›

Hey, remember how our economy got/still is totally screwed by mortgage-backed securities? Now it looks like the U.S. government is getting ready to sue the banks that issued them! The NY Times reports, "The federal agency that oversees the mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is set to file suits against more than a dozen big banks, accusing them of misrepresenting the quality of mortgage securities they assembled and sold at the height of the housing bubble, and seeking billions of dollars in compensation." more ›

Democrats are wringing their hands over the latest apparent sign that President Obama is a wimp: After yesterday's public squabble—the White House announced Obama's jobs speech would be September 7, at the same time as the GOP debate, which then prompted House Speaker John Boehner to issue an angry letter!—now Obama will give his speech on September 8. White House spokesman Jay Carney said today, "Our intention was merely for the president to address a joint session of Congress as soon as possible upon Congress’s return from recess. Both houses are supposed to be -- will be in session next Wednesday, so we asked for that day," adding that Boehner's office never objected when September 7 was initially requested. more ›

U.S. stock markets are plummeting—the Dow is now down over 500 points (-4.41%) while the S&P 500 has fallen 4.76% and the Nasdaq has lost 5.24%. Why? According to the Wall Street Journal, it's because of "disappointing U.S. economic news and Europe's ongoing sovereign debt problems." more ›

After the NY Post compared the stock market's volatility to a hooker's panties on its front page, the Daily News is now wading into the muck. Literally, with a photograph of the Bowling Green bull statue's butt next to a worker sweeping the ground and the word "CRAPS!" underneath. Well, the Dow did fall 519 points yesterday... but couldn't the News have just Photoshopped the bull's balls blue? more ›