U.s. Economy | featured news

Gibbs said that proposals by Republican Mitt Romney and other Republicans amount to nothing more than tax breaks for the wealthy and fewer regulations for business, the recipe tried during the George W. Bush years and found wanting. "We tried it in eight years and it ended in this huge economic calamity," Gibbs said.

The economy is so good in North Dakota, it’s almost like being in another country. Although Friday’s lackluster national jobs report may have intensified the already deep anxiety among voters about the sluggish state of the economy, here in the nation’s northern reaches, the concerns are exactly the opposite: how to build roads and schools and houses fast enough to keep up with an astounding population boom that has sprung up alongside the country’s most roaring state-level economy.

In a sense, what’s really interesting about the Romney and Obama plans is that they don’t conflict with one another. Obama has a set of ideas for boosting job creation now. Romney has a set of ideas for long-term economic growth. You could implement all of Obama’s 41 bullet points and all of Romney’s 59 bullet points simultaneously. There’s nothing about increasing infrastructure investment that keeps you from cutting corporate taxes, for instance.

Third straight month of weak hiring shows economy is struggling three years after recession ended. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 8.2 percent, the Labor Department said Friday. Click to Continue »

The last piece of this month's economic data puzzle is expected to confirm what others have shown so far: the U.S. job machine isn't putting Americans back to work fast enough.

The U.S. economy expanded at a 1.9 percent annual rate in the first three months of the year, a weak pace that few economists see changing much this year.

U.S. companies hired the fewest people in seven months in April, a worrisome sign for a labor market that has struggled to gain traction and adding to concerns that the economy has lost some momentum.

The American economy grew slower than predicted in the first quarter, as government spending cuts offset a pickup in consumer spending.

The number of people seeking U.S. unemployment benefits fell to a four-year low last week, suggesting employers kept hiring in March at a healthy pace.

Retailers are reporting warm weather and demand for new spring fashions helped push March sales up.