Did you know rich students get financial help from colleges while the poor ones get laden with debt instead? Such is the conclusion of a new report, Demerit Aid, from the New America Foundation. While Pell grants tallied $35 billion in 2012, universities are reducing their own financial aid based on income and instead, shifting those funds to the wealthy students.
The April Consumer Price Index dropped -0.4% from March. CPI measures inflation, or price increases. The culprit is gas prices again, which plunged -8.1% for the month. This is the biggest monthly decline in overall CPI since December 2008, when the economy was at risk of a deflationary spiral. Take food and energy items out of the index and CPI actually rose 0.1% from March, so once again volatile retail gasoline prices are wreaking havoc in the overall consumer price index, as well as consumer's monthly budgets.
The rich get richer and the rest of us get the economic shaft. That is the theme of this so called economic recovery since 2009. A new Pew Research report, A Rise in Wealth for the Wealthy; Declines for the Lower 93%, analyzes newly released Census data on wealth. What they found is the rich got richer and the rest of us got poorer. The great American wealth transfer continues.
The DOL reported people filing for initial unemployment insurance benefits in the week ending on May 11th, 2013 was 360,000, a 32,000 increase from the previous week of 328,000 and a six week high. This is the wrong direction for weekly initial unemployment claims and shows, once again, as far as jobs are concerned, the recession never ended.
Once again our daily barrage of economic injustice news is overwhelming. From lobbyist lies to interest rate swap rigging to killing workers by the hundreds to our best and brightest working jobs flipping burgers, here are some quick economic news shorts that you don't want to miss.
A Flash Crash hit all major US stock markets this afternoon when a hacked Associated Press alert appeared which stated that two major explosions occurred at the White House, injuring President Barack Obama. Within seconds all the major stock indexes - the Dow Jones Industrials, the S&P 500, and the NASDAQ, began plummeting.
The Great Corporate Tax Dodge is alive and well. A couple of new studies show corporate taxes as a percentage of total tax revenues are at a 60 year low and many corporations pay no tax at all. The GAO issued a new report which shows use of corporate tax breaks cost the U.S. government $181.4 billion in 2011 alone.
The BLS March JOLTS report, or Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey shows there are 3.1 official unemployed per job opening, the same as last month. Job openings declined -1.4% from last month to a total of 3,844,000. People hired in March declined by -4.3% to 4.259 million. Real hiring has only increased 18% from June 2009. Job openings are still below pre-recession levels of 4.7 million. Job openings have increased 81% from July 2009. The story for jobs is the same flat line drum beat for March. There is never enough actual hiring in addition to not enough openings.
America has a problem, a big problem. We have a Congress who will only act when powerful lobbyists throw enough money at them. Such is the result of the new Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill. This bill will be an unmitigated disaster for working America. The bill increases the U.S. legal labor supply by at least 14 million by giving not just those here illegally legal status but also those who were previously deported who still have family members in the U.S. the legal status to work.
The BLS employment report shows the official unemployment rate ticked down 0.1 percentage point to 7.5%, and the current population survey statistics are a mixed bag of strange. More people were employed, yet the number of people stuck in part-time jobs continues to increase. The labor participation rate stayed at the same May 1979 record low. U-6, a broader measure of unemployment, ticked up 0.1 percentage point to 13.9%.
The truth comes out on the mortgage fraud settlement. The OCC announced the payout terms and for most people, they get less than $1,000 out of the deal. Only in America can one be fraudulently foreclosed on, lose their home, have their credit ruined, only to be compensated less than $1,000 for the ordeal.
The U.S. March 2013 monthly trade deficit decreased 11% to $38.8 billion. U.S. exports decreased $1.7 billion or -0.9%. Imports declined by $6.5 billion, a -2.8% decrease. Expect an upward revision on the trade component to Q1 GDP, assuming prices were stable.
Tonight's Friday Featured Documentary is the three hour PBS documentary Women Who Make America. The film goes trhough the history of the woman's movement of the 1960's. Recently we wrote about foreign guest workers enabling sex discrimination in high tech. This film shows just how bad it was for women's equal rights and the battles fought. Yet in 2013, Republicans are yet again blocking a bill to guarantee equal pay for equal work.
ADP's proprietary private payrolls jobs report shows a gained of 119,000 private sector jobs for April 2013. ADP revised their March job figures down by 27,000 to 131 thousand. February's tally was revised down by 39,000 to a total of 198 thousand private sector jobs gained for the month. This is the weakest monthly ADP reported private sector job growth since August 2012.
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