The U.S. economy barely added jobs for the second month in a row in June and the unemployment rate rose to the highest level this year, adding to concerns the labor market will take years to recover.

Nonfarm payrolls rose 18,000 last month, far less than expected, as small gains in the private sector were just enough to outweigh continued government-job losses, the Labor Department said Friday in its survey of employers. Payrolls data for the previous two months were revised down by a total 44,000 to show increases of only 25,000 jobs in May and 217,000 in April.

The jobless rate, which is obtained from a separate household survey, increased for the third straight month to 9.2% in June from 9.1% in May. It was the highest level since December 2010. There are 14.1 million Americans who would like to work but can’t get a job.

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South Carolina boasts a strong connection to the shuttle program. At least six NASA shuttle astronauts have state ties, ranging from Ronald E. McNair of Lake City, who died in the 1986 Challenger explosion, to current NASA administrator Charles Bolden of Columbia, pilot of the mission that launched the Hubble Space Telescope. Both are black and were born and raised in segregation.

Beyond providing astronauts, though, there’s bad news on the horizon as the state is losing one of its chosen paths to the skies.

For three decades, experiments run by South Carolina researchers had ready shuttle access beyond Earth’s gravity. They include about 30 programs run by the University of South Carolina and 35 more by Clemson University. Even tiny Claflin University was in the mix, with four of its projects sent into orbit.

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…the results for male employment status on the other hand were far more surprising.

For a man, not being employed not only increases the chances that his wife will initiate divorce, but also that he will be the one who opts to leave. Even men who are relatively happy in their marriages are more likely to leave if they are not employed, the research found.

Taken together, the findings suggest an “asymmetric” change in traditional gender roles in marriage, the researchers say.

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Despite already passing the largest package of tax increases in state history, legislators must return to Hartford on Thursday after an agreement with the state employee unions imploded. But the unbalanced budget is hardly the only problem. Connecticut, despite its affluent image and past successes, is facing a startling series of economic and fiscal challenges that it now has no option but to confront.

“No state had more resources and did less with them over the past 20 years,” said William E. Curry Jr., a former Democratic candidate for governor who now writes about state and national politics. “Yeah, we wiped out in finance and real estate, but the real problem was our own poor choices.

“We tried to import jobs you must grow yourself. We tried to save cities with ballparks and convention centers. We borrowed like shopaholics, shortchanged pension funds and barely showed up for collective bargaining.”

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The costs of a lockout could be enormous, particularly if the entire season were lost. In that case, the league’s most valuable franchises, including the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers, stand to lose more than $200 million each in revenue, according to estimates by Forbes.

Beyond owners and players, however, a lockout would be no less painful to countless restaurants, bars, and retail stores that depend on the NBA for foot traffic and sales. Many are only beginning to recover from the recession.

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I’m hosting this month’s CGI America meeting on the assumption that there will be no federal stimulus and no further tax incentives targeted directly toward creating new jobs. Going on these assumptions, we want to analyze America’s economy: What are our assets? What are our liabilities? What are our options? There must be opportunities to be tapped, given all the cash in banks and corporate treasuries. If we have some success, we might be able to influence the debate in Washington in a nonpartisan way because we’ll have economic evidence to show them. I don’t have any problem at all if Congress wants to give tax credits to companies that actually hire people. But I think we have to pay for them, so I’d be happy to go back to the tax rates people at my income level paid when I was president in order to pay for the tax incentives to put more people to work.

The whole purpose of CGI America is to highlight good ideas because not everyone is aware of what’s out there. I’m going to try to get enough commitments that are representative enough of the circumstances facing diverse industries and different cities and states to persuade people across America to try their own version of them in a discussion of our economic stagnation. There’s been a remarkable lack of attention to “microeconomics,” the untapped growth potential of American corporations, entrepreneurs, and workers.

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Americans are using the weekends to get more done at home and on the job….

”¢35% of workers overall work on weekends. A slightly greater percentage of part-timers work on weekends than full-time employees. On average, those who work weekends work 5½ hours. More than half of sales workers work on weekends, the largest percentage among occupations in the survey. But weekend duty is a fact of life for only 20% of office and administrative personnel

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The question about the prospects for Greece is not whether the country will default. That is, in my view, as near to a certainty as any such thing can be. The question is whether a default would be enough to return the economy to reasonable health. I strongly doubt it. The country seems too uncompetitive for that. A default is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for a return to economic health….

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Even before the state’s new budget is formally adopted social-service providers in the North Country were struggling. Now with more cuts expected they are worrying that the new budget will make things much worse.

A dozen or so representatives from various social service agencies got together last Friday in Berlin at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church.

They invited some North Country legislators to discuss what they see as a grim outlook for helping those who are down on their luck

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Check it out.

Two years into a fitful recovery, unemployed Americans are getting painfully accustomed to the notion that it will take years to bring back the jobs eviscerated by the financial crisis.

In some regions, those years are in danger of turning into a decade. According to a report to be released Monday, nearly 50 metropolitan regions ”” or more than one out of seven ”” are unlikely to bring back all the jobs lost in the recession until after 2020.

Among those areas are Cleveland and Dayton, Ohio; Detroit; Reno, Nev.; and Atlantic City, according to the report commissioned by the United States Conference of Mayors.

Detroit, which lost 323,400 jobs during the recession, and Reno, which lost 36,000 jobs, are not expected to regain all of those positions until after 2021.

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While unemployment among the general population is about 9.1 percent, it’s at 16.2 percent African Americans, and a bit higher still for African American males.

CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller reports that, historically, the unemployment rate for African Americans has always been higher than the national average. However, now it’s at Depression-era levels. The most recent figures show African American joblessness at 16.2 percent. For black males, it’s at 17.5 percent; And for black teens, it’s nearly 41 percent.

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An unexpectedly huge $3 million budget shortfall for the Columbia area’s bus system is likely to cut the number of routes in half and cost as many as 40 jobs in the company that operates the buses, transit officials disclosed Wednesday.

The figures were released at a specially called meeting of the Central Midlands Regional Transit Authority board attended by fewer than the required seven-member quorum. The board took no action but asked chairwoman Joyce Dickerson to make an appeal to Columbia City Council to offset $618,000 of the red ink.

That still would leave a $2.5 million shortage for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.

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The questions raised by the board are legitimate ones. The problem is the remedy it has proposed, which would have the perverse effect of confining Boeing’s growth to its home region….

Federal law doesn’t stop Boeing from putting production lines where labor costs are lower. And the company’s defenders say that Boeing’s expansion in South Carolina hasn’t cost machinists jobs in the Puget Sound region; to the contrary, the company has added more than 2,000 jobs there. Nevertheless, the complaint raises a valid issue of whether the comments by Boeing executives crossed the line from being transparent about their motives to trying to intimidate workers to avert future strikes and hold down labor costs. That kind of intimidation is illegal.

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One disturbing fact from the McKinsey report is this: The number of new businesses, a traditional source of jobs, was down 23 percent in 2010 from 2007; the level was the lowest since 1983, when America had about 75 million fewer people. Large corporations are standoffish. They have about $2 trillion of cash and securities on their balance sheets, which could be used for hiring and investing in new products. Meanwhile, the latest University of Michigan Survey of Consumers reports that “record numbers ”¦ thought that their incomes would lag inflation over the next five years.” Note: They didn’t expect high inflation so much as low income growth.

It’s not that economics achieved nothing. The emergency measures thrown at the crisis in many countries ”” exceptionally low interest rates, “stimulus” programs of extra spending and tax cuts ”” probably averted another Depression. But it’s also true that there’s now no consensus among economists as to how to strengthen the recovery.

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There may be $2 trillion sitting on the balance sheets of American corporations globally, but firms show no signs of wanting to spend it in order to hire workers at home, however much Washington might hope they will. Meanwhile, the average American is feeling poorer by the week. “If one looks at unemployment and housing, it’s clear that for all practical purposes, we have yet to fully get out of recession,” says Harvard economist Ken Rogoff, summing up what everyone who doesn’t live inside the Beltway Bubble is thinking. While the White House’s official 2011 growth estimate, locked in before Japan and the oil shock, is still 3.1%, most economic seers are betting on 2.6%. That’s not nearly enough to propel us out of an unemployment crisis that threatens to create a lost generation of workers who can’t find good jobs and may never find them. Welcome to the 2% economy.

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Companies that are looking for a good deal aren’t seeing one in new workers.

Workers are getting more expensive while equipment is getting cheaper, and the combination is encouraging companies to spend on machines rather than people.

“I want to have as few people touching our products as possible,” said Dan Mishek, managing director of Vista Technologies in Vadnais Heights, Minn. “Everything should be as automated as it can be. We just can’t afford to compete with countries like China on labor costs, especially when workers are getting even more expensive.”

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The problem, however, is not a lack of Americans who want to be nurses. It’s finding the schools that can teach them.

“There’s definitely a lot of people interested in nursing,” said Robert Rosseter, spokesman for the American Association of Colleges of Nursing.

“The number of students who met all the requirements but weren’t admitted was over 67,000 students last year [in U.S. nursing programs],” he said. “People do want in, but there just aren’t enough seats.”

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Estimates of monthly GDP indicate that the only growth in the first quarter of 2011 was from February to March. After a temporary rise in March, the economy began sliding again in April, with declines in real wages, in durable-goods orders and manufacturing production, in existing home sales, and in real per-capita disposable incomes. It is not surprising that the index of leading indicators fell in April, only the second decline since it began to rise in the spring of 2009.

The data for May are beginning to arrive and are even worse than April’s. They are marked by a collapse in payroll-employment gains; a higher unemployment rate; manufacturers’ reports of slower orders and production; weak chain-store sales; and a sharp drop in consumer confidence.

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Photos of St George’s Church, Linwood, Christchurch–take a look.

Here is one:

Last Sunday, in my local Anglican church, we were enjoined to take our Christian faith to the work-place, as “worship” is not just about sitting on a pew, but informs every part of our lives. That is why William Wilberforce worked to abolish slavery; that is why many work with the homeless and addicts here, or are going abroad to help the poor and disadvantaged there.

The Christian faith is the motivating force for many who seek to do good. Why? Because Christians are obeying the words of Jesus as written by St Matthew: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

For two thousand years this is what Christians have been doing, and in the process they have played a part in shaping Western civilisation. For as long as society, judges and the General Medical Council allow freedom of religion and speech in our country, Christians will continue to do this.

Juliet Lloyd
Northwood, Middlesex

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Economists have found themselves repeatedly making excuses. First it was the snowstorms. Then it was Japan’s earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster which crimped the supply of parts to car assembly plants in America. Then, as the snow melted, floods ravaged Arkansas, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee, and tornadoes battered Alabama and Missouri. America has suffered five incidents of extreme weather this year, each inflicting at least $1 billion in damage.

The most important special factor has been petrol. Prices jumped from $3 per gallon at the end of December to $3.90 in early May. That has siphoned off much of the purchasing power that consumers should have extracted from December’s tax agreement and subsequent gains in employment. Total consumer spending rose at just a 6.7% annual rate in the three months to the end of April, but most of that increase was eaten up by inflation. Real spending grew by a paltry 2.2%.

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Take a careful look–ugh.

After several months of strong job growth, hiring slowed sharply in May, raising concerns once again about the underlying strength of the economic recovery.

The Labor Department reported on Friday that the United States added 54,000 nonfarm payroll jobs last month, following an increase of 232,000 jobs in April. May’s job gain was about a third of what economists had been forecasting.

The unemployment rate ticked up to 9.1 percent from 9.0 percent in April.

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Over the past decade, real private-sector wage growth has scraped bottom at 4%, just below the 5% increase from 1929 to 1939, government data show.

To put that in perspective, since the Great Depression, 10-year gains in real private wages had always exceeded 25% with one exception: the period ended in 1982-83, when the jobless rate spiked above 10% and wage gains briefly decelerated to 16%.

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Squeezed on both sides by stagnant wages and rising prices, consumers believe the chances of bringing home more money one year from now are at their lowest in 25 years, according to analysis of survey data by Goldman Sachs.

Goldman’s economist Jan Hatzius looked at the University of Michigan and Thomson Reuters poll, which asks consumers whether they believe their family income will rise more than inflation in the next 12 months. Hatzius applied a six-month moving average to smooth out the data and found that wage pessimism is at its lowest in more than two decades.

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…[John] Haltiwanger has been trying to set things straight on the question of which firms are creating jobs, most recently in a paper with the catchy title, “Job Creation and Firm Dynamics in the U.S.”

Haltiwanger starts out by noting that in an economy with about 110 million private sector jobs, firms create and destroy 15 to 17 million jobs in a typical year. This churning goes on in all industries and all sizes of firms ”” it even goes on within the same firm ”” and what drives it is the the constant shifting of work from the least productive firms and factories and stores to the more productive.

For many decades, the U.S. economy has been more effective at this process of “creative destruction” than almost any other country in the world. And what Haltiwanger and his collaborators have found over the years is that young firms ”” business startups and a small number of new firms that grow very quickly ”” have played an outsize role in that process. In job creation, it turns out, it is not size that matters but the age of the firm. Small businesses don’t create all the new jobs ”” young ones do.

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South Carolina legislators gave final approval Wednesday to a deal bringing Amazon.com Inc. and its promise of 2,000 jobs to the state.

The House voted 90-14 to approve a compromise brokered last week in the Senate, sending the measure to Gov. Nikki Haley’s desk. ‘It’s a great day for South Carolina and the unemployed people of the state,’ Sen. Jake Knotts, R-West Columbia, said after the vote. ‘We welcome Amazon!’

Haley opposes the measure but has repeatedly said she won’t veto it. The Republican governor has called it bad policy that’s unfair to retailers that collect the tax. If not signed or vetoed, the bill would become law after five days. ‘Nothing has changed’ about her position, Haley spokesman Rob Godfrey said after the vote.

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The White House said Wednesday that taxpayers could lose roughly $14 billion of the money spent on auto industry bailouts, despite the industry’s recent recovery.

The White House cites the potential losses in a report, “The Resurgence of the American Automotive Industry,” released ahead of President Barack Obama’s trip Friday to a Chrysler Group LLC facility in Toledo, Ohio.

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O God, who hast taught us that none should be idle: Grant to all the people of this land both the desire and the opportunity to labour; that, working together with one heart and mind, they may set forward the welfare of mankind, and glorify thy holy name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.