U.S. Economy

Minnesota personal incomes increased more in 2012 than just about all other states

Minnesotans are just hot, period. But recent data indicates our state is particularly hot in the areas of job creation and personal income.SEE ALSO: Economic recovery? What economic recovery? Mpls donut shop hiring... an unpaid internAccording to the latest U.S. Department of Commerce data, per capi ... More >>

Minnesota gained more jobs in last six months than any half-year since Reagan's heyday

What a difference a state makes.SEE ALSO: When dating prospects look bleak, women focus on their careers, new U of M study finds While Wisconsinites have been enduring arguably the worst job market in the country, Minnesota is adding jobs at a clip faster than any seen since Walter Mondale was chall ... More >>

Julie Rosen trolls activists during frac sand hearing, says "they have to expect" misery [VIDEO]

Sen. Julie Rosen, R-Fairmont, believes life is hard -- especially if you're unlucky enough to live near a frac sand deposit.SEE ALSO: Red Wing Mayor Dennis Egan resigns amid frac sand lobbying controversy During a hearing earlier this week about a proposed one-year moratorium on new frac sand mines ... More >>

Minnesota's economic recovery driven by McJobs, not middle-class jobs

SEE ALSO:-- The Mpls Federal Reserve breaks down the Great Recession, steady recovery out of it [GRAPHICS]-- Minnesota has regained 48 percent of jobs lost during Great RecessionMinnesota has regained 58 percent of the 147,600 jobs lost during the Great Recession. That puts up ahead of most of the r ... More >>

Mitt Romney blames Wisconsin's problems on Obama, ignores Scott Walker [VIDEO]

SEE ALSO:-- Wisconsin lost more jobs than any other state over last yearMary Hoglund, 83, spits in Romney supporter's face during Wisconsin event [VIDEO]-- Michele Bachmann says Romney is best presidential candidate because Obama is too wealthy [VIDEO]Scott Walker became governor of Wisconsin in ear ... More >>

The Mpls Federal Reserve breaks down the Great Recession, steady recovery out of it [GRAPHICS]

SEE ALSO:-- Obama shouts out Warroad-based, Romney-supporting Marvin Windows [VIDEO]-- Minnesota has regained 48 percent of jobs lost during Great Recession-- Young women become more vain during recessions, U of M prof findsIn the words of one financial policy analyst, the Minneapolis Fed's new brea ... More >>

America's Petro-Terrorists

Wall Street and Washington conspire to destabilize the U.S. economy, one barrel of oil at a time

Obama's Minnesota visit comes in wake of dismal jobs report

If it really is all about the economy, stupid, then President Obama's reelection prospects are more precarious this morning than they were yesterday. Obama is in the Twin Cities today. He'll give a speech at Honeywell's Golden Valley facility this morning before heading downtown for a string of fund ... More >>

Minnesota has regained 48 percent of jobs lost during Great Recession

​Strong gains in the private sector helped Minnesota add 15,500 jobs in January, pushing the state's unemployment rate down to 5.6 percent, a level not seen since September 2008.In total, Minnesota has now regained 74,900 of the 156,000 jobs lost during the Great Recession. And believe it not, the ... More >>

Minnesota job market improved drastically last year

​In another indication the economy continues to recover, new data shows that Minnesota's job market at the end of 2011 was a helluva lot stronger than it was a year prior. According to the Department of Employment and Economic Development, job vacancies in the state climbed 47.6 percent during the ... More >>

Minnesota child poverty nearly doubled during last decade

​As the stock market rises and unemployment decreases, it's easy to lose sight of just how far the now-possibly-recovering economy fell from the pre-September 11 heights of a decade ago.Here's a reminder -- since 2001, the number of Minnesota children living in high-poverty neighborhoods has nearl ... More >>

Franken's new bill would ban Fannie/Freddie from betting against homeowners

Franken wants Fannie/Freddie to put their money where their mouth is. ​Today, Senator Franken plans to introduce legislation that would help more homeowners refinance their home mortgages, saving them money and, in some cases, helping them keep their homes.Franken's Helping Homeowners Refinance Ac ... More >>

State doles out millions to laid-off workers amid shaky job market

​Yesterday, the state Department of Employment and Economic Development announced it has awarded more than $2.2 million in grants to provide services for 585 workers who were recently laid off at eight Minnesota businesses.The grants represent a significant public expense meant to help out-of-work ... More >>

Occupy MN protesters march to the Fed [VIDEO]

​As their numbers increased in the Hennepin County Government Center Plaza this afternoon, more and more chatter rose among the Occupy MN crowd about marching to the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. The Fed was the originally planned occupation destination, but organizers worried that arrests ... More >>

Tim Slagle

Al Franken: "Unwillingness to compromise" might kill Obama's jobs bill

Al Franken says Obama's jobs plan can't survive political wrangling.​Al Franken watched the debate to raise the debt ceiling drag on -- and on, and on -- over party politics. Franken doesn't want to see the same thing happen with Barack Obama's new jobs plan, but he fears it might anyway.America's ... More >>

Michele Bachmann rebuts Obama's jobs plan with her non-plan

Michele Bachmann's got a plan, she just won't tell us what it is.​Barack Obama gave a speech before a joint session of Congress last night, introducing a wide-ranging second stimulus package to jolt the American economy back to life.Michele Bachmann says it wasn't even a plan, and said there are ... More >>

Michele Bachmann used Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac for her home loan

Bachmann says one thing in public in, and does another in private.​Michele Bachmann used federally backed home loans from Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac just weeks before she denounced those programs and called for them to be dismantled, according to the Washington Post. Experts who reviewed the home l ... More >>

Bachmann flunks Wall Street bailout history, hammers Obama rather than Bush

Michele Bachmann attributes the Wall Street bailout to Obama, not Bush.​Michele Bachmann has flunked American history again. "When he came in as the president of the United States," she said of Barack Obama yesterday in South Carolina, "he decided we had to have this $700 billion bailout of Wall ... More >>

Minneapolis is the best American city for finding employment

mattlawsFind work here.​All you people without a job, take note: Forbes magazine has named Minneapolis the best city in the country for finding a job. We can hear you sharpening pencils for those job application forms right now.

Tim Pawlenty CPAC debt ceiling talk at odds with John Boehner

​Tim Pawlenty at CPAC today doubled down with the Michele Bachmann wing of the Republican party by insisting that, "We should not -- we should not -- raise the debt ceiling." Like Bachmann, he wants to hang the nation's deficit around Barack Obama's neck. And the line got a round of applause ... More >>

Mark Dayton sworn in as governor today [UPDATE]

Mark Dayton will be the next governor of Minnesota.​Be careful what you wish for, the old saying goes. Mark Dayton took the oath of office as Minnesota's governor at noon, the first Democrat to hold that office in decades.

Michele Bachmann loses "Lie of the Year" again

​After getting trounced last year by Sarah Palin, we really thought she had a shot this time around. But once again, Michele Bachmann has been been stiff-armed by the readers of PolitiFact's annual "Lie of the Year" competition. Her whopper:

3,000 anti-gay marriage DVDs returned to Archbishop Nienstedt

Merry Christmas, Archbishop.​Archbishop John Nienstedt will get an early Christmas present today in the form of 3,000 anti-gay marriage DVDs, some of the 400,000 he ordered sent to his flock in September. A protest group called ReturnTheDVD planned to deliver the disks, along with handwritte ... More >>