The nation gained 117,000 jobs in July while the U.S. unemployment rate dropped slightly from 9.2 percent  in June to 9.1 percent last month, according to Department of Labor data released this morning . Analysts had predicted jobs would grow by about 90,000 in July.

The unemployment rate for young workers between ages 16 to 24 has skyrocketed as millions of young people have lost jobs and school enrollment has steadily increased over the past decade.

Washington politicians who want to cut Social Security while they reduce the deficit should give an eye to this recent Snapshot from the Economic Policy Institute ( EPI ). They’ll find there’s no fat to cut.

Amid a cacophony of complaints by management lawyers, Scott Pedigo’s voice broke through the rhetoric and laid out for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) what it’s really like to try and form a union in today’s economic environment.

The Republican budget approach of “cut,  cut, cut” has jeopardized our economic recovery and Democrats are poised to turn the debate back to what’s most on American’s minds: creating and maintaining good jobs, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said today.

Not only would a merger between AT&T and T-Mobile mean that T-Mobile’s more than 20,000 workers have the chance to choose a union without interference , but it would open the door for a high-speed broadband build-out to 97 percent of the population, helping close the digital divide.

If China increased the value of its currency to its real level, the resulting growth in the United States could create 2.25 million new U.S. jobs, according to a new report.      

The Benefits of Revaluation , released today by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), explains that if the value of the Chinese currency, the yuan, and satellite currencies, such as those in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia, were increased by 25 percent to 30 percent against the dollar, the U.S. gross domestic product would grow as much as $285.7 billion, creating up to 2.25 million U.S. jobs. Creating that many jobs would reduce the U.S. unemployment rate by at least one full percentage point.

A handful of states this year have introduced bills to raise their minimum wage. That’s generated the usual cries from business groups and the regular gang of lawmakers who fight darn near every piece of pro-worker legislation that comes along. 

Today is the 10-year  anniversary of President Bush’s tax cuts that went mostly to very rich individuals and big corporations. According to the rosy economic scenario Bush and the Republicans painted, the nation today should be figuring out to what to do with a $5.6 trillion budget surplus and just how to fill the tens of millions of new jobs that were supposed to generate new wealth for all of us.

It goes like this—“We’re going broke we can’t afford it.” It’s almost a mantra from the crowd of lawmakers and policy “experts” who are loudly and continually claiming the nation must make drastic cuts in family-help government programs; cut wages, pension and health care for public-sector workers and who also suggest working families should be satisfied with three decades of stagnant wages.