A veteran Republican senator believes President Obama's "stimulus" package is continuing to destroy economic growth and private sector employment.

The Labor Department reported yesterday that the number of people who joined the unemployment lines went up again last week as the number of those applying for unemployment benefits rose by 18,000 to a seasonally adjusted 460,000.

Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) says the Obama administration's job-creation efforts are not working...

Two weeks after President Obama signed the new health care bill, opposition to it remains strong. In addition, the president’s legislative victory did not help his job approval rating, which hit a new low in a Fox News poll released Thursday.

The poll also finds more voters would punish rather than reward incumbents who voted for the health care bill, and that the Democratic win did nothing to energize the party faithful for the midterms.

President Obama’s overall job approval rating dropped to a new low of 43 percent. Nearly half -- 48 percent -- disapprove. In mid-March, it was 46-48 percent. His current rating among Democrats (80 percent) and independents (38 percent) are among his lowest ratings with these groups. He is now in single digits among Republicans (7 percent). By comparison, former President George W. Bush’s approval among Democrats went as low as 4 percent...

The number of newly laid-off workers seeking unemployment benefits rose last week, a sign that jobs remain scarce even as the economy recovers.

The Labor Department said first-time claims increased by 18,000 to a seasonally adjusted 460,000. That's worse than economists' estimates of a drop to 435,000, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.

The report covers the week that includes the Easter holiday, and a Labor Department analyst said seasonal adjustment for that week can be difficult since the Easter holiday occurs in different weeks each year...

Despite a modest rise last month in employment, the White House on Sunday braced out-of-work Americans for a slow economic recovery.

Obama's chief economic adviser Lawrence Summers said on a pair of talk shows that a year after the passage of the stimulus bill, the U.S. economy still has "a long way to go."

Summers said pushing the unemployment rate down from its current 9.7 percent level won't be easy...

While President Obama's health insurance mandate on businesses is being slowly phased in to prevent any immediate damage to the economic recovery, it nevertheless poses an obstacle to his overarching goal of creating jobs and could end up adding to spiraling medical costs rather than controlling them.

Economists not connected with either political party expect the new law to intensify the boom in health care spending - it already is the only major business sector that managed to grow during the recession - while adding to the reluctance of millions of businesses outside of health care to take on new workers because in the future they must provide costly and comprehensive medical benefits that previously were optional.

Mr. Obama signed the measure into law at a time when optimism was growing that the massive 8.4 million in job losses spawned by the recession might be coming to an end, so its effect on employment will be closely watched...

Powerhouse student loan provider Sallie Mae says layoffs are imminent as a result of President Obama's new student loan overhaul.

"This legislation will force Sallie Mae to reduce our 8,600-person workforce by 2,500," Conwey Casillas, Vice President of Sallie Mae Public Affairs, said in a statement to Fox News.

Obama was at Northern Virginia Community College in Alexandria on Tuesday to sign the student loan changes into law. The new bill includes a provision for the government to begin directly lending to students, bypassing financial institutions like Sallie May that traditionally have provided the loans. Obama said that such institutions have soaked up billions in subsidies....

Washington (AP) - The Federal Reserve predicts unemployment will stay high over the next two years because recession-scarred Americans are likely to stay cautious making for only a moderate-paced economic recovery.

Fed policymakers say it will take "some time" for the economy and the jobs market to get back to normal. And, a minority think it could take more than five or six years for that to happen. Previously, Fed policymakers suggested it could take five or six years for economic conditions to return to full health.

In updated economic projections, the Fed says the unemployment rate this year could hover between 9.5 percent and 9.7 percent. Next year, it will drop to between 8.2 percent and 8.5 percent. By 2012, the jobless rate will range between 6.6 percent and 7.5 percent.

(CNSNews.com) – A federal commission has yet to enact a year-old executive order that President Barack Obama thinks will avoid labor unrest but one that critics say discriminates against non-union companies and non-union workers in federal contracting.

The construction industry, one of the hardest hit industries from the economic downturn, is speaking out against enactment of the executive order. While unemployment is 9.7 percent nationwide, it is 18.7 percent in the construction industry.

Brett McMahon, vice president of the Miller & Long concrete construction firm in Bethesda, Md., said the company is anxious over what will happen if the executive order is enacted....

A tax policy expert predicts that Democrats' job bill in Congress will not create jobs in the long term, and may actually have the effect of reducing employment. One budget analyst describes it as a combination of "temporary gimmicks" and pork-barrel spending.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) is proposing a $16-billion jobs bill that will provide a tax credit for employers to hire unemployed workers. His proposal is a scaled-back version of the $85-billion plan put forth by the White House that had gained some bipartisan support. Republicans say they were blind-sided by Reid's move.

Curtis Dubay, a senior tax policy analyst at The Heritage Foundation, says the jobs tax credit that is being pushed through Congress is slightly different than the one President Obama proposed a few weeks back, but it will have the same result...

WASHINGTON - It sounds great: A big jobs bill that would hand President Barack Obama a badly needed victory and please Republicans with tax cuts at the same time. But there's a problem: It won't create many jobs.

Even the Obama administration acknowledges the legislation's centerpiece - a tax cut for businesses that hire unemployed workers - would work only on the margins.

As for the bill's effectiveness, tax experts and business leaders said companies are unlikely to hire workers just to receive a tax break. Before businesses start hiring, they need increased demand for their products, more work for their employees and more revenue to pay those workers.

"We're skeptical that it's going to be a big job creator," said Bill Rys, tax counsel for the National Federation of Independent Business. "There's certainly nothing wrong with giving a tax break to a business that's hired a new worker, especially in these tough times.