Spending Up, Jobless Claims Down, But Still No Economic Recovery Yet

There's good news and bad news today for the US economy. The good news is that consumer spending rose 0.7% last month, according to the Commerce Department. And, according to the Labor Department, the number of laid-off workers filing unemployment claims fell by 35,000 to 466,000 -- the fewest since September of last year and the first time since January that the number fell below 500,000.

Signs of a recovery? Not so fast. The bad news is that the Federal Reserve expects unemployment to remain high -- around 7% -- through 2012, and says it could take "about five or six years" for the economy to return to normal.

Given this forecast, Paul Krugman asks: "Why is anyone talking about an 'exit strategy'?"

"The truth is that policy should be piling on," writes Krugman, "not looking for the exit."

Comments

[vippy]

11:03 AM on 11/29/2009

I want to see a headline that says 100 jobs were created. How come we can have figures on everything else but we can't get the jobs created figures. Since 2000 I remember we had to report how many new jobs we created and guess what, when someone quit and we rehired we declared it as new job created, which was a lie. But it made us look good and no one ever came and challenged us. So I know this figure is hard to get. But they have figures on everything else. That the unemployment figure did not go up is understandable because in the end there are no jobs and no one can put in for unemployment anymore, so how does that give us a milestone? Ridiculous, and yes, both parties are at fault.

[gaholiday]

02:15 PM on 11/28/2009

I have a question , what exactly will the Republicans do that will get the economy going if they get in office?

Beyong tax cut for the guys on Wall Street , cut medicare , social security , and Invade Iran?

[invest in jobs]

10:42 AM on 11/28/2009

Where is the change we can believe in? Why more troops in Afghanistan?

rec website: http://financeopinionss.blogspot.com
Playing the center isn't a viable strategy in the long term because the republicans wont compromise and he'll lose some dem support.

[CommunistUtopia]

12:45 AM on 11/28/2009

With all of the job killing bills going around why would anyone hire anyone to do anything? We need to end cap and trade once and for all, end the government takeover of health care, and stop all of these bad ideas to increase taxes.

[vippy]

11:06 AM on 11/29/2009

Birth control: best way to cut greenhouse gas
A UN report says that preventing 1 billion births by 2050 would save as much carbon dioxide as 2 million wind turbines. Besides, the 10 biggest ECO-Disasters were caused by the large corporations not the people, so why not tax them. Carbon trading will surpass the lucrative oil business. Enough said.

[CommunistUtopia]

10:48 PM on 11/29/2009

I think Ger many had some ideas similar to yours in th 1930s....

[vippy]

05:39 AM on 11/30/2009

I copied a headline off some newspaper and I noticed it was addressed a second time within a week. Germany geared their attention to specific people. Think about it, the rate we are going earth will be full, there won't be any farmland left and the garbage we create.
The USA alone went from 289 million to 330 million or thereabouts in the last 30 years.

[Factonfact]

10:01 PM on 11/27/2009

Gee, it took 10 years for our nation to come out of the Great Depression? And then recovery finally arrived because of a little thing called World War II.

Let's see, now, we've been in this Great Recession for what, a year now?

Beats me . . .

[jws2346]

05:35 PM on 11/27/2009

D'uh, it's been pretty well documented that around this time of the year there's an uptick in consumer spending, I think they call it the Holiday Season. This time of the year many people have been known to increase their spending, unfortunately they sometimes spend beyond their meager budgets, to buy gifts and such. You know, like Christmas gifts? I don't think around Jan or Feb of this year the unemployed ,or those afraid of being unemployed, are going to be as free spending as they are from here until the 25th Dec.

[JBS]

05:08 PM on 11/27/2009

Good News?

Fewer people lost their jobs last month than lost their jobs in the preceding month ... although we won't REALLY know that until six months from now when the revised, "seasonally adjusted" updated numbers are released.

Still, it's not like maybe more people who were already unemployed FOUND jobs than got laid off, now is it?

Lies, damn lies & statistics.

[Joker Jam]

01:57 PM on 11/27/2009

I didn't spend a dime on Black Friday...not contributing to a rigged economy run by globalists who have contempt for the working class while bailing out the big banks at tax payer expense.

good articles: http://financeopinionss.blogspot.com

staying home 2010, 2012

[vippy]

11:07 AM on 11/29/2009

Please vote 3rd party and we will change our system. No more lies on the campaign trails, who cares how much money they spend.

[Winston120]

12:09 AM on 11/27/2009

The Obama Team only took seriously the financial state of AIG, GM, Citi, BAC, and Goldman.

They continue to be dismissive of the core issues for the American people (yo, O, memba us?):
unemployment and foreclosures.

[platanoman]

06:51 AM on 11/27/2009

Umm he did a sign a stimulus and foreclosure bill. are you paying attention?

[bluevase]

07:15 PM on 11/27/2009

Obama spent the Treasury on the banks --- very little "stimulus" went to the American people. Haven't you heard?

[CommunistUtopia]

12:47 AM on 11/28/2009

Have you seen any positive results? If so, please share because all I have seen is a bunch of money poured down the drain.

[Joker Jam]

07:41 PM on 11/26/2009

We are in a battle for survival between wall street vs main street

good articles: http://financeopinionss.blogspot.com

too bad Obama's not doing enough for the later

[Joker Jam]

11:53 AM on 11/26/2009

Looks like the overseas markets crashing on Dubai default fears...Maybe this is retribution for all the Wall Street excess over the past few months..

hat tip to http://financeopinionss.blogspot.com

let Wall Street fail. Let the banks fail

[bluejoni2525]

05:23 PM on 11/26/2009

spam

[vippy]

11:08 AM on 11/29/2009

Now, our senator, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, who wants the job as Governor of Texas, suddenly had hindsight and said she made a mistake voting for the bailout of the banks. LOL, we need expertise and foresight in Washington, something severely lacking for the past 50 years.

[rollingdivision]

11:27 AM on 11/26/2009

obama and his followers should be extremely worried about the mid term elections.

[gaholiday]

02:13 PM on 11/28/2009

So seriously , what's the big plan if the people that started the train wreck get in office?

[SimJack]

09:57 AM on 11/26/2009

Spending is up because prices are up and package sizes have shrunk, not because people are buying more 'units' of anything. How many people are filing first time unemployment claims is not equivalent to how many people are losing benefits, finding jobs equivalent to those they lost or the number of good new jobs that are being created. There is bogus number manipulation going on and reports like this are absolutely worthless, irresponsible, dishonest and unethical.

[Carolab]

05:30 AM on 11/26/2009

Just because claims went down, that doesn't mean that unemployment is any less bad.

It just means fewer people were eligible to file.

[platanoman]

06:57 AM on 11/27/2009

that doesn't make sense at all.

[condor101]

02:13 AM on 11/26/2009

Corporate America doesn't care about individual workers.
The U.S. gov is spending all of our tax money in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Every Man, woman, and child has to fend for themselves in this country.
A cash business is the best thing to have.
A friend of mine is a bartender and they make over $100,000 a year, ALL Cash.
And good for them that they don't pay any tax on their money. It's the only way to survive in this country.