2012 | featured news

Consumer sentiment dropped to a six-month low in June as Americans' view of the economy soured, a survey released on Friday showed.

Consumer spending was flat in May for the first time in five months as Americans eased off on vehicle purchases amid tepid wage growth, but subsiding inflation pressures should keep demand supported.

Single-family home prices rose for the first time in 10 months, in an encouraging sign the battered sector is starting to stabilize, a closely watched survey said on Tuesday.

Can traffic-chasing sensationalism and society-changing journalism co-exist under the same roof? The decision by the Pulitzer Committee to award this year's prize for national reporting to the Huffington Post's David Wood for his series on wounded veterans is a pretty good sign that they can, at least for now. Editor in chief Arianna Huffington and executive editor Tim O'Brien took a few minutes out from the staff's champagne toast to talk about what it means for the seven-year-old news organization.

March 2012 will go down as the warmest March in the United States since record-keeping began in 1895, NOAA said Monday.

Employers hired far fewer workers in March than in previous months, keeping the door open for the Federal Reserve to provide more monetary support for a still sluggish economy.

The pace of growth in the manufacturing sector picked up a tad in March, while new orders dipped modestly, according to an industry report released on Mon day.

In yet another sign of a strengthening recovery, the United States added 227,000 net jobs in February, the third consecutive month of gains over 200,000. The unemployment rate was unchanged from 8.3 percent in January, the Labor Department reported Friday, as nearly a half million people who had been staying on the sidelines rejoined the search for work. The strong job growth numbers could bolster President Obama’s effort to make the case to voters that his economic policies are working.

The pace of job creation by private employers accelerated more than expected in February, a report by a payrolls processor showed on Wednesday.

If you’re a salaried employee and you’re slaving away at work today, you may be working for free.