FRIDAY, January 25 New claims for unemployment insurance for the week ended Jan. 19 dropped to their lowest level since July, falling 15,000 to 376,000 seasonally adjusted, down from the previous week's revised total of 391,000, according to figures released by the Employment and Training Administration (Daily Labor Report, page D-1).
Smaller pay gains and widespread layoffs held down personal income gains in most states during the third quarter of 2001, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. BEA says 33 states posted personal income gains of less than 1 percent (Daily Labor Report, page D-4). The number of workers filing new claims for state unemployment benefits fell last week to the lowest level in almost six months, the Labor Department reported today, a sign that companies are slowing the pace of dismissals (The New York Times, page C10). The U.S. economy, slumping for nearly a year, is showing enough signs of revival that there is no clear need for legislation to give it a short-term boost, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said yesterday. "There have been signs recently that some of the forces that have been restraining the economy over the past year are starting to diminish and that activity is beginning to firm," Greenspan told the Senate Budget Committee (The Washington Post, page A1). Although a number of analysts now look for an economic recovery in the second half of 2002, indicators such as an unemployment rate that is expected to hover in the 6 percent range throughout the year could create a rocky environment for bargaining in several sectors in coming months (Daily Labor Report, 2002 Labor Outlook, page S-17).
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