Archive for January, 2009

The Boston Globe reports on a Moody’s study that estimates that Massachusetts will receive about $11 billion from 2/3 of the enormous borrow-and-spend bill that President Barack Obama and the Democratic Congress majority is pushing. The $11 billion would “would save or create 94,560 jobs in Massachusetts.”
That’s weak. Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick claims that the [...]

Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the second quarter 2008 numbers for “establishments, employment, and wages” in the 335 largest counties. Here are the numbers for the relevant counties in Massachusetts:

County
Est.
Empl.
%ch.
Rank
Wage
%ch.
Rank

Barnstable
9.2
101.4
-1.6
259
725
2.5
166

Bristol
15.5
221.4
-1.4
246
773
2.4
175

Essex
20.9
305.6
0.0
126
902
2.7
145

Hampden
14.3
202.2
-0.5
182
766
2.4
175

Middlesex
47.5
834.5
0.8
67
1,240
5.2
19

Norfolk
23.3
329.6
-0.5
182
1,013
2.7
145

Plymouth
13.8
180.7
-1.0
215
829
3.1
117

Suffolk
21.7
596.6
0.9
60
1,309
2.2
194

Worcester
20.6
324.9
-1.2
232
869
3.3
94

Est. is the number of establishments in the second quarter of 2008, Empl. the number of employees in June 2008, %Ch. is the percent [...]

Metropolitan unemployment rates in Massachusetts in November 2008. These rates are not seasonally adjusted.

MSA
Nov2008
Oct2008
Nov2007

Barnstable Town
6.5
5.0
4.2

Boston-Cambridge-Quincy
5.0
4.6
3.6

Leominster-Fitchburg-Gardner
7.1
6.4
4.7

New Bedford
7.9
7.3
5.5

Pittsfield
5.2
4.4
3.5

Springfield
6.2
5.6
4.4

Worcester
5.9
5.4
4.2

What’s this Boston-Cambridge-Quincy?
Unemployment rates in all metropolitan areas in the United States.

Arizona Cardinals iced their Wild Card play-off victory over the visiting Atlanta Falcons when tight end Stephen Spach caught a third-down-and-16 pass for 23 yards and a new set of downs that allowed the Cardinals to kneel out the clock.
The Cardinals picked up Spach in late October and he quickly became a regular on the [...]