Government jobs at lowest in 47 years... or 4 years

Federal jobs are at their lowest level level in 47 years... or 4 years. It depends on how you look at it.

About 2.7 million people worked for Uncle Sam in September, not including military. According to the Department of Labor, that's the lowest number since 1966! Could it be that the government workforce is at its smallest size since the Lyndon Johnson administration?

Not exactly.

Digging deeper into MORE

Get ready for higher health insurance costs at work

Don't be surprised if you're shelling out more for health care on the job next year.

After several years of relatively moderate spending increases, health care costs are set to jump in 2014.

Employees will spend just under $5,000 on premiums and out-of-pocket expenses next year, according to new research by Aon Hewitt, an employee benefits administrator. That's up 9.5% from the year before.

This is because overall health care spending will increase MORE

Delayed jobs report to be released Tuesday

The wait is finally over.

The Department of Labor plans to release its September jobs report on Tuesday, October 22. The report, which tallies the number of jobs created each month and calculates the nation's unemployment rate, has been delayed since October 4 amid the federal government shutdown.

During that time, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which compiles the report, had only three staff members working. As a result, the agency was also unable to collect MORE

Putting U.S. debt in perspective

The recent shutdown spat and debt ceiling brawl in Washington was about many things – pride, power, a hatred of big government, Obamacare, perhaps Obama himself. But nestled among those concerns is debt – specifically, a fear that we're borrowing more than we can afford.

So how bad is it?

The raw number looks pretty bad.

But before people go cutting up social security cards or building doomsday shelters, consider this: most nations MORE

Shutdown week 2: Still hurts

As the government shutdown finishes its second week, many Americans are feeling the pain.

Paychecks getting hit

Furlough days sliced $600 from Tammy Woodard's paycheck as a contracting specialist at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. The mom of two-year-old twins needs that money to pay for daycare and doctor visits for her sons Levi and Preston. Also, the mounting furlough days, from both the sequester and the shutdown, has made it tough MORE

Fitch warns again on China debt

When the current crop of Chinese leaders assumed power, they wasted no time in ordering an extensive audit of local government debt.

Presumably the new team, led by President Xi Jinping, wanted to know what everyone else wants to know: How has China's massive expansion of credit since 2008 affected state finances?

The uncomfortable truth is that nobody has a great handle on exactly how much local governments have spent.

The bean counters MORE

Economists react as Summers drops out of Fed chair race

Move over football tweets. When the news broke Sunday afternoon that Larry Summers had withdrawn his name from the Fed chair race, economists were quick to react on Twitter.

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, spoke highly of Federal Reserve Vice Chair Janet Yellen, who is considered the frontrunner for the position now that Summers dropped out.

Janet Yellen understands that good jobs at good wages are good for MORE

3 films to watch, 5 years after the crisis

Just in time for the fifth anniversary of the financial crisis, the next two weeks bring the release of three economic documentaries.

INEQUALITY FOR ALL

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich takes on economic bullies in this film about widening income inequality in the United States. It's all there: Declining wages for the middle class? Check. Big money dominating politics? Check. Incentives that benefit Wall Street and do not trickle down to the MORE