Wages & Prices

Today's report from the government on retail sales was awful — "unexpectedly" so, according to both Bloomberg and Reuters. Following on the heels of a 0.4 percent seasonally adjusted decline in January and a flat February, March sales fell by 0.3 percent. Two of the three main U.S. business wire services blamed the American people, not the worst post-recession economy since World War II during…

Did you know that Tuesday was “Equal Pay Day,” the day that a woman’s pay supposedly catches up to a man’s from the previous year? Well don’t worry, Andrea Mitchell has got you covered. Mitchell brought on Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney and Hollywood star Patricia Arquette to bemoan the plight of the oppressed and push their new congressional study.

On Tuesday, shortly after Governor Jerry Brown signed California's $15-an-hour minimum wage legislation, the Associated Press's Michael R. Blood and Don Thompson called the move "a victory for those struggling on the margins of the economy and the politically powerful unions that pushed it." As seen in a NewsBusters post on March 31, it's definitely a win for union members whose wages are set…

CNN's State of the Union host Jake Tapper scored the lone Sunday morning talk show interview with Hillary Clinton and, unfortunately, Tapper failed to ask her about either Benghazi, the e-mail scandal, or the Clinton Foundation and instead discussed Black Lives Matter protesters, a $15 minimum wage, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, and a contested convention.

New York Times San Francisco bureau chief Thomas Fuller embraced a major shift toward European-style social policy in that city in Wednesday's “No Pay Cuts for New Parents in San Francisco – City Becomes the First in the Country to Approve Six Weeks of Fully Paid Leave.” As shown by that headline, the Times got really excited about the local liberal ordinance, with a full story on the front of…

Perhaps this is why the press has been reluctant to cite economists who are predicting that sharp increases in state minimum wages like the $15-per-hour minimums just passed in California and New York will reduce employment: They're with many of their lefty brethren who don't care whether jobs are lost. So they must believe that no one else should care either. At the Washington Post's WonkBlog…

In a television piece by Jaime Garcia, only commentary in favor of the newly approved state mandated wage hikes were given airtime.  Predictably, union leaders, Democrat party lawmakers, leaders of progressive non-profits and the law’s advocates were showcased in the segment. Apparently, Garcia could not find one person in opposition to the law.

The Associated Press, the nation's de facto business news gatekeeper for those who don't follow the economy or the markets closely, is telling America that the U.S. job market is fine, and ignoring the dismal results seen in weekly pay during the past several months. Christopher Rugaber's Friday evening coverage of the government's jobs report earlier in the day described the reported 215,000 in…

New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes got a prominent Sunday front-page spot for a rather humdrum story on economic recovery in a blue-collar Indiana town and why President Obama wasn’t getting the credit he deserved for it. Racism, perhaps? The puzzled headline: “Political Discontent Festers in Indiana Town Despite Jobs Surge.” Online it was more explicit: “Obama Gets Scant Credit in Indiana…

The Associated Press sent its cameramen and reporters out to get the reaction of small business owners to California's just-passed six-year plan to raise the state's minimum wage to $15 an hour. Anyone expecting the AP to find representative responses clearly doesn't understand how the far-left propaganda machine disguised as an objective news service operates. All three business owners…

In covering Thursday morning's report from the Department of Labor on initial unemployment claims, one of a relatively few economic reports showing strength these days, Associated Press reporter Scott Boak spread his enthusiasm over the result to the entire economy. It wasn't justified. It's as if the poor guy has missed most of the pertinent other economic news during the past week, most of…

A Los Angeles Times story by Liam Dillon and Patrick McGreevy hailed the "historic" increase in the state-mandated minimum wage to $15 an hour. Apparently giddy with excitement, the pair also unwisely told readers that many public-sector employees who earn far more will be receiving big raises as a result of the legislation with having to bother negotiating with the government entities involved…

Mark Zandi, Moody's chief economist, comments monthly on the ADP private-sector employment report his firm compiles. He is "often quoted in national and global publications and interviewed by major news media outlets, and is a frequent guest on CNBC, NPR, Meet the Press, CNN, and various other national networks and news programs." Zandi has also been the economy's head cheerleader during much of…

It's so predictable. Whenever a government or leader follows the left's playbook and the results "uexpectedly" don't turn out to be anywhere near what was desired, it isn't the policies' or the leader's fault. No-no-no. During the Mayor David Dinkins era in New York City, it was because Gotham had become ungovernable by any human being – until Rudy Giuliani took over. During the Carter Era, the…