“Recessions” on The Daily Caller

WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of people applying for unemployment benefits plunged last week to the lowest level in nearly three years, continuing a downward trend that suggests hiring could pick up this year. (more)

Far fewer people are applying for unemployment benefits as the year ends, raising hopes for a healthier job market in 2011. (more)

In 2008, young adults in America experienced a collective political awakening when, inspired by the Gospel of Hope and Change, they turned out in record numbers to “Rock the Vote” for Barack Obama. (more)

Not since the early 1980s has the nation’s unemployment rate been so grim for so long, a government report due Friday is likely to show. (more)

On the eve of the midterm elections, a third-quarter GDP report showing a meager 2 percent growth rate is the final nail in the Obama Democrats’ political coffin. (more)

The United States economy grew at an annual rate of 2 percent in the third quarter, the Commerce Department reported Friday, as it struggled to sustain its recovery from a deep recession. (more)

Production in the U.S. unexpectedly dropped in September for the first time in more than a year, showing the industry that led the economy out of the recession is cooling. (more)

To understand the nation’s anti-incumbency, look no further than the economy’s anti-recovery, which appears to be reversing former House Speaker Tip O’Neill’s dictum that all politics is local.  Anti-incumbency is threatening to make all politics national. (more)

Friday’s unemployment report for September, the last before the election, brought more bad news for the Obama Democrats. (more)

U.S. consumer confidence fell to its lowest level in seven months in September, underscoring lingering worries about the strength of the economic recovery. (more)

Harvard University economics professor Martin Feldstein said more bond purchases by the Federal Reserve probably wouldn’t do much to spur the slowly growing U.S. economy. (more)

“The movers and shakers of our society seem…oblivious to the terrible destruction wrought by the economic storm that has roared through America.” Thus writes the New York Times’ Bob Herbert, who notes in a weekend column that “nearly 44 million people were living in poverty last year, which is more than 14 percent of the population. That is an increase of 4 million over the previous year, the highest percentage in 15 years.” (more)

Confidence among U.S. homebuilders in September unexpectedly held at the lowest level in more than a year, showing the housing market remains depressed following the expiration of a government tax credit. (more)

The much-studied links between poverty and crime rates – which helped give rise to many Great Society programs – have not materialized so far in the Great Recession. Even with 15 percent of Americans now officially poor, both violent crime and property crime continued to drop in the United States in 2009, the FBI reported Monday. (more)

For most Americans, the Labor Day weekend will be a welcome reprieve from the nine-to-five grind. But for nearly 15 million Americans, today is little more than a sad reminder they are without a job. (more)

It’s not a little bit optimistic to be establishing a list of best careers now, at the tail end of a particularly hard-knocks recession that has helped put 15.4 million Americans out of work. That’s particularly so because no industry or occupation was spared the misery of layoffs, hiring freezes, benefit cuts, and general anxiety. But some industries were much safer harbors for workers than others. Healthcare, most notably, managed to expand its payrolls, though not at the clip customary for a healthier economy. It’s clear that the recession is ending and that employers aren’t slashing jobs with the blunt instrument they used over the past two years, but many unemployed workers and college students have a question that can’t be answered by upticks in the GDP, namely: Where on earth will the jobs be? (more)

Positive gross domestic product readings and other mildly hopeful signs are masking an ugly truth: The US economy is in a 1930s-style Depression, Gluskin Sheff economist David Rosenberg said Tuesday. (more)

Unemployment rates by county are spreading like a terminal cancer. The video below offers a fascinating visual of the havoc the recession is causing on the country. At first, mostly metropolitan areas are affected, yet the decline rapidly sweeps through surrounding regions and across the U.S. (more)

With the disappointingly soft jobs report for July, and a faltering recovery overall, is Team Obama getting ready for some sort of new, liberal-left, Keynesian, big-bang stimulus package? Will they be desperate to “do something”? (more)

Americans are spending more on electronics like iPads and flat-screen televisions and less on durable goods like furniture, washing machines and lawn mowers, according to government data released Tuesday. (more)