Unemployment Rate | featured news

We’ve hit that moment in the election when people begin to lose their minds. Case in point, within minutes of the jobs report, Twitter filled with Republicans claiming the books were somehow cooked, the numbers aren’t real, etc. Let’s take a deep breath. Jobs reports are about the economy, not about the election. Confusing the two leads to very bad analysis.

Following an unexpectedly strong jobs report Friday showing unemployment falling to 7.8 percent and 114,000 new jobs added, conservative media figures and one prominent business leader quickly latched on to conspiracy theories about the veracity of the numbers. Call it jobs-numbers trutherism. And for the sake of historical record, its origin was a tweet from former General Electric CEO Jack Welch.

The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent last month, dropping below 8 percent for the first time in nearly four years and giving President Barack Obama a potential boost with the election a month away.

Unemployment rates in August rose in 26 states from July, but most states showed lower rates than a year ago, the federal government reported Friday. Nevada continued to lead the country with the highest unemployment rate, 12.1% in August.

It may be premature to call it a runaway hit, but in the first month since the Census Bureau released its first mobile application, it’s been downloaded more than 32,000 times. The app, called America’s Economy, provides updated statistics from the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It includes 16 monthly economic indicators,such as house sales, personal income, international trade, gross domestic product and the unemployment rate.

The economy added only 96,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department reported this morning; Republicans quickly pounced on the slow job growth, the morning after the Democrats wrapped up their convention in Charlotte.

U.S. employers added 96,000 jobs last month, a weak figure that could slow any momentum President Barack Obama hoped to gain from his speech to the Democratic National Convention. The unemployment rate fell to 8.1 percent from 8.3 percent in July, but only because more people gave up looking for work. The government only counts people as unemployed if they are actively searching.

Unemployment rates rose in 44 U.S. states in July, the most states to show a monthly increase in more than three years and a reflection of weak hiring nationwide. The Labor Department said Friday that unemployment rates fell in only two states and were unchanged in four.

The state's labor market showed continued resilience in July as California employers added 25,200 nonfarm jobs in July, continuing a 12-month streak of job gains. With that figure, the state posted the largest month-over-month increase in the country, but the unemployment rate was unchanged at 10.7%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Mitt Romney said the July report showing an 8.3% jobless rate is a 'hammer blow' to the middle class. The U.S. economy added 163,000 jobs in July, according to a government report released today, but the unemployment rate rose to 8.3%.