Posts in category Government & Politics

Employers added 203,000 jobs in November, far more than the 180,000 expected by economists, according to numbers released Friday by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The numbers from the federal government capped a week of positive news that included numbers from payroll company ADP that showed private companies added more jobs and numbers showing the gross domestic product had grown faster in the third quarter of 2013 than any time since the beginning of 2012.

The U.S. economy grew at the best rate in a year and half in the third quarter of 2013, which ended in September.

Revised numbers from the U.S. Department of Commerce show that the nation’s gross domestic product expanded by 3.6%, a number that easily beat the prediction from economists of a 3.1% growth rate.

The number is the highest since a 3.7% expansion in the first quarter of 2012.

The automobile industry continued its rebound this week from the depths of the recession, with the federal government announcing it will sell its stock in General Motors and advisors with once-broke Chrysler projecting a $10 valuation for the company.

The United States Treasury Department announced this week that it is selling the final 31.1 million shares it holds in GM. This will end taxpayers’ investment in the giant auto maker, which faced bankruptcy in 2008 before being bailed out by then-President George Bush and, later, President Barack Obama.

Government shut down? What government shutdown?

Retail sales numbers released Wednesday by the U.S. Commerce Department showed that American consumers increased their spending in October. This came despite a federal government shutdown that lasted 16 days and brought many government services to a halt.

according to new data from the Institute of International Education (IIE).

The IIE’s annual Open Doors Report on International Educational Exchange found that the number of international students in the United States increased to 819,644.

The flow of students out of the United States also hit record levels, according to the study, with 283,000 students from the United States studying aboard.

At the time of the financial bailout in 2008, the number seemed impossibly high: $116 billion.

That’s how much of taxpayers’ money was used to bailout Fannie Mae, the government-controlled mortgage company that was hit hard by the Great Recession last decade.

However, Fannie Mae reported this week that its third quarter profit more than quadrupled this year, meaning it can repay another $10.2 billion of the federal loan it received in 2008. At this pace, the mortgage giant will have repaid most of the loan by the end of this year.

The U.S. Midwest experienced a surge in business activity in October, with new manufacturing orders hitting the highest level since 2004.

In other economic news, the number of weekly jobless claims fell by 10,000 to about 340,000, according to the United States Department of Labor. The jobless numbers indicate that the government shutdown is no longer affecting the economy as federal workers and government contractors return to work.

The unemployment rate fell to 7.2% in September, according to numbers released Tuesday by the federal Department of Labor.

The release was delayed due to the government shutdown that lasted through the first 16 days of October because of the inability of Congress and the White House to reach an agreement on the federal budget.

Jobless claims across the United States fell by 15,000 to a total of 358,000 in the week that ended Oct. 12, according to a report from the Department of Labor.

While lower, the number is not as low as what was forecast by economists, who anticipated the total number to drop to about 335,000, according to Bloomberg.

The number still includes a backlog from California, where a break down in the system last month has led to an increase in numbers from that state the past few weeks. Additionally, the figures include some of the government workers and government contractors who lost their jobs, at least temporarily, during the government shutdown that ended this week.

The six-year Greek recession will end in 2014, according to a new report from the nation’s government.

Greece has been locked in a debt crisis that caused panic about the future of the euro, the European currency. Other European countries and the International Monetary Fund have had to repeatedly bail out the Greek government.