U.S. Budget and Economy

On January 8th, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released its Employment Situation Summary for December of 2009. It stated that nonfarm payroll employment dropped by 85,000 in December. That put the number of nonfarm payroll jobs at 130.91 million, just about the same level that existed in February of 2000. Hence, we have gone nearly a decade with virtually no job growth. Perhaps more disturbing, however, has been the growth in long-term unemployment. On this topic, the December report stated the following: Among the unemployed, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) continued to trend up, reaching 6.1 million. In December, 4 in 10 unemployed workers were jobless for 27 weeks or longer. The following graph shows the average and median duration of unemployment since 1948: Links to the actual data used to create this graph can be found at this link . As can be seen, the average and median duration of unemployment have risen to what is by far their hi...

Following is an excerpt from a Wall Street Journal article from December 31, 2009: The Treasury sold more than $2.1 trillion in notes and bonds this year, more than in the previous two years combined, to fund a widening budget shortfall and finance programs to rescue the banking system and support the economy. Yet, despite the supply onslaught, buyers—from foreign central banks to U.S. households and domestic commercial banks—flocked to the sales. As a result, the government's borrowing costs fell to historic lows in 2009. Regarding these borrowing costs, the Treasury Department posts the average interest rates on U.S. Treasury Securities at this link . This shows the monthly averages from 2001 through 2009 and was apparently used to create the graph at this link . The table for December 2009 shows that the average interest rates for Treasury Bills (which have a maturity of one year or less) fell to a mere 0.237 percent at the end of 2009, compared to 1.082 percent at the end o...