Jobless Rate Hits 9.4%, But Layoffs Ease

But most remain upbeat about their future: Pew survey

(NEWSER) - The economy is doing a number on those aged 18 to 34, according to a new survey from the Pew Research Center :

• Half say they have taken a job they didn't want.
• More than a third have gone back to school because of the job market.
• Nearly a quarter have taken unpaid work to gain experience.
• About a quarter have moved back in with the folks.
• More than 1 in 5 have postponed having a baby, and about the same number have put off getting married.

It was a surprise drop, notes Bloomberg

(NEWSER) - Unexpected visit from the in-laws: bad news. Unexpected drop in jobless claims: very good news. Though Bloomberg reports that economists anticipated that the number of Americans filing first-time jobless claims would hold steady around 390,000, it instead dropped by 19,000 last week, to 366,000. The last time it was that low? May 2008, a long-ago era when Jennifer Aniston was dating John Mayer and Newser thought "twittering" was an appropriate verb. Reuters notes that the number is approaching the 350,000 mark, one that analysts consider a sign of "more sustained improvement in the job market." Stocks rose on the news, notes Marketwatch . More»

Forecast sees it at 8.6% at end of 2012

(NEWSER) - If President Obama were hoping for a quick election-year turnaround in the jobless rate, the Federal Reserve burst his bubble today. The Fed projected unemployment will be at 8.6% at the end of 2012, not much better than the 9.1% registered in September of this year, reports the Wall Street Journal . The projections don't get remarkably better after that: The Fed sees the rate at 8% by the end of 2013 and 7.7% the following year. More»

...Unless you were a millionaire

(NEWSER) - The Social Security Administration quietly released payroll data for 2010 yesterday, and they were “in a word, awful,” writes David Cay Johnston at Reuters —assuming you’re not a millionaire, that is. The number of people making at least $1 million rose by 20%, jumping from 78,000 to almost 94,000. But for everyone else, there were fewer jobs and they paid less. The median paycheck fell 1.2% to $26,364, or $507 a week, its lowest level, adjusting for inflation, since 1999. More»

Median household income down 6.7% between June 2009, June 2011

(NEWSER) - US incomes continued to fall after the 2007 recession was declared over—at an even steeper rate than during the recession, according to a recent analysis. Inflation-adjusted median household income fell 6.7% between June 2009 and June 2011. During the two-year recession, incomes fell 3.2%. The full four-year drop is the largest in several decades, reports the New York Times . Incomes continued to fall even as the economy grew stronger and unemployment fell slightly, according to an analysis of Census data. More»