The Congressional Budget Office’s budget and economic outlook released this month projects that real Gross Domestic Product will grow by 3.3 percent from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2018.
That would mark a 15-year high.“In CBO’s projections, real GDP expands by 3.3 percent this year and by 2.4 percent in 2019,” says the CBO report. “It grew by 2.6 percent last year.”
The last time real GDP grew by more than 3.3 percent from the fourth quarter of one year to the fourth quarter of the next was in 2003, when it grew by 4.4 percent, according to the historical data published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
14 states hit record-low unemployment
Fourteen states have set new records for low unemployment rates in the last year, nearly a decade after the recession put millions of Americans out of work.
The states hitting new unemployment lows run the ideological gamut, from conservative Texas to liberal California, suggesting a recovery stronger than any particular political persuasion.
What? You mean his policies are good for the whole country?
In March, eight states saw new record lows, including Hawaii (2.1 percent), Idaho (2.9 percent), Kentucky (4 percent ), Maine (2.7 percent), Mississippi (4.5 percent), Oregon (4.1 percent) and Wisconsin (2.9 percent).
California also set a new record last month. The Golden State’s unemployment rate stands at 4.1 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). That’s the lowest rate recorded since BLS began keeping track of state-level unemployment figures in 1976, and it’s a third of the 12.3 percent unemployment rate California notched at the height of the recession in December 2010. Colorado’s unemployment rate is just 2.6 percent, among the lowest in the nation, and a third of the 8.9 percent peak it hit in 2010.
In Alabama, just 3.7 percent of workers are unemployed. Arkansas reached a 3.6 percent unemployment rate last May, its lowest rate ever. North Dakota set its own record last year. Texas hit a 3.9 percent unemployment rate in November, after peaking at 8.3 percent during the height of the recession. Tennessee fell to the lowest unemployment rate it has ever measured, 3.3 percent, in January. Hawaii’s unemployment rate is the lowest in the nation, BLS said. Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota and Wisconsin all have unemployment rates lower than 3 percent.
Such a tight job market means businesses are competing for workers, rather than workers competing for scarce jobs. That has some economists combing through data in search of evidence of rising wages, which have been largely stagnant since the recession.
Trump moves to cancel student loan debt for disabled veterans
It may be getting easier for some disabled veterans to erase their student loan debt.
The Department of Education announced Monday that it will partner with the Department of Veteran Affairs to identify disabled student loan borrowers who are eligible for debt forgiveness. Such borrowers will be notified of their potential eligibility in the mail and will also receive a Total and Permanent Disability Discharge application, the avenue though which borrowers with severe physical impairments are approved to erase their debt.
Such outreach is needed: Many disabled veterans are currently unaware that they can be eligible for student loan debt forgiveness, said Carrie Wofford, president of Veterans Education Success, a nonprofit advocacy group.
"It's horrific," Wofford said "There are disabled veterans who served their country who are financially struggling — and sometimes destitute — who are legally entitled to have their student loans forgiven but it's not happening."
Imagine what he could do if he weren't opposed by the Democrats, the Deep State, the MSM, and the never-Trumpers.
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