In answer to President Obama’s call for better access to higher education for those with less money, experts gathered this month at a summit called the Education Datapalooza, hosted by the White House and the Department of Education.
In a blog post on the Department of Education website, Education Secretary Arne Duncan wrote that meeting was part of the president’s plan to make education affordable for every American.
Housing starts in the United States increased by 9.8% in December, a number that meant an annual pace of 999,000 new homes started across the country, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce.
That number is higher than the 975,000 predicted by economists, and even higher than the numbers from the warm summer months.
J.C. Penney, one of the nations largest retail companies, is laying off 2,000 people and closing 33 stores. The news did not surprise most economists and those who keep an eye on the business world.
Jobless claims fell by 2,000 in the first full week of January, according to numbers released this week by the U.S. Department of Labor. The total number of weekly applications for benefits fell to 326,000, the lowest in six weeks.
A group of leading economists, including seven Nobel laureates, have joined the effort to raise the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.
The Fair Minimum Wage Act – introduced by Rep. George Miller, D-California, and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa – would increase the minimum wage in a series of steps over three years. The current minimum wage is $7.25.
The fortunes of Bitcoin have risen and fallen, but lately more companies are beginning to accept the digital currency as payment.
Over the past weekend, social gaming company Zynga announced that it now accepts Bitcoin as a form of in-game payment.
The nation’s unemployment rate fell to 6.7% in December – but primarily because so many people dropped out of the workforce, according to numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The 6.7% number is the lowest since October 2008. However, the BLS reported that 347,000 people stopped looking for work. The federal government only counts those who are looking for work but unable to find a job as the “unemployed.”
The American home market continued to offer low mortgage rates as home lenders await more news about how the Federal Reserve will handle fiscal policy going into 2014.
There also was anticipation about the unemployment report set to come out at the end of the first full week of January.
Employers added 238,000 jobs in December, the most since November 2012, according to payroll processing company ADP. The ADP data was released just two days before the U.S. Department of Labor releases unemployment figures for December and revised numbers for November.
Small businesses across the United States added 20,000 jobs in December, continuing an overall trend that started two years ago of more small business employers bringing in workers.
The total number of jobs added at small businesses since March 2010 stands at more than 555,000, according to numbers from the Intuit Small Business Employment and Revenue indexes.