The April jobs report is due out from the U.S. Labor Department on Friday. While economic statistics typically have a temporary effect on Wall Street before being shoved aside by whatever bit of news or data arrives a few days later, the April jobs number could be a bigger deal than usual.

Recently, the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged. Following the announcement, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke held the first ever Fed press conference in which he laid out the Fed’s view of the U.S. economy. He suggested that the economic recovery is slowing. He didn’t use the word fragile, but plenty of people heard it anyway. He also suggested that inflation was tame and that any uptick was dwarfed by the greater potential for a slowdown in growth.

Jobs Key to Economic Recovery

Business spending has been measured, despite a tiny boom going on in Silicon Valley. Consumer spending has been whacked by not only by widespread job losses, but also by the housing market crash and subsequent collapse of the mortgage industry.

Many homeowners have no equity left in their homes. Those that do are finding that terms for second mortgages are no better than the difficulties faced by many in getting first mortgages. Refinancers aren’t doing any better regardless of credit score and loan payment history.

In other words, the only source of new money for this economy is new jobs. Without them, the recovery is doomed. With them, what is now a fragile economic recovery could slowly bloom into a full-fledged recovery.

The April jobs report is expected to come in with around 200,000 new private sector jobs. If the actual jobs number is close, expect the usual temporary effect from the jobs report, up if better than 200K or lower if less, either way, faded into market memory by the middle of next week.

If, on the other hand, the jobs number comes in substantially lower, expect some serious fallout. Unless analysts choose to write off April as an anomaly, low job creation suggests the economy may not be recovering, slowly or otherwise. That suggestion could trigger the slow unwinding of the current bets on Wall Street that better numbers and better growth is on the way for stocks and earnings. Without that optimism, nothing is holding this market up.

Low job growth, plus Washington budget cutting that slashes jobs at the Federal Government could be the death blow for an economic recovery that has been slow and unsteady thus far.

If investors start worrying too much about that possible future, the market is due for another downturn that could wipe out all the gains for this year and may even start wiping out last year’s stock market rise.

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April Jobs Report Could Have Big Impact On Stocks originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

One topic that generates a lot of confusion in people’s personal finances is what is the difference between exempt and nonexempt employees?

There are actually a lot of nuances and pages of labor law that deal with the difference between nonexempt and exempt employees. However, the practical implications of what it means to be an exempt employee or non exempt employee are pretty straight forward.

Basically, it comes down to whether you have to be paid for overtime or whether you have to be paid the minimum wage.

What Is An Exempt Employee

The definition of exempt employee is one who is not subject to the minimum wage or overtime rules of the Fair Labor Standards Act, or FLSA.

An FLSA exempt employee must fall into one of several categories to qualify as exempt. What determines exempt employee by labor law standards is what role the employee has in their job. A job title is not enough to make an employee exempt.

There are several types of exempt employees including certain employees under age 20, employees of a motor carrier (drivers), and certain types of seasonal and farm workers. In addition, a broad category of salaried exempt employee allows certain employees to be exempt from federal labor law provisions.

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Salaried Exempt Employee

A salaried exempt employee is an employee in one of several jobs including executive, administrative or professional employees as defined in the FLSA. Certain computer employees can also be exempt from overtime provisions provided they are paid a wage of at least $27.63 per hour.

Non-salaried Exempt Employee

Certain people who are not paid a salary can also be exempt employees. Non-salaried exempt employees include drivers, farmworkers, workers at automobile dealerships and seasonal and recreational employees (ski areas, amusement parks).

Commissioned sales employees of retail or service establishments are also exempt from overtime rules as along as more than half of the employee’s earnings come from commissions and the employee averages at least one and one-half times the minimum wage for each hour worked.

Other Exempt Employees

Certain people are exempt from either the minimum wage standards or overtime rules just from being in one of several defined jobs.

FLSA Exempt Positions:

• Airline employees
• Babysitters
• Boat salespeople
• Workers with disabilities
• Fishing industry employees
• Local delivery drivers
• Newspaper delivery
• Railroad employees
• Seamen on both American and non-American vessels
• Taxi drivers
• Youth employed by their parents

What Being Exempt Means

On a practical basis, for most people, being an exempt employee means that you do not earn overtime pay for working more than 40 hours per week. Most professional employees make well above the minimum wage, so any exemption to being paid minimum wage is moot.

Jobs with minimum wage exceptions are typically those that involve either earning tips or commissions and those where the employee is a minor or under age 20. Generally, these jobs are not exempt from paying overtime, although one and a half times the low hourly rate they pay isn’t a big difference many times.

Current Minimum Wage

The current federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour. Many states, and even some local governments, have their own minimum wage. To be valid, a state’s minimum wage must be higher than the federal minimum wage, otherwise, the employee must be paid at least the federal minimum wage.

The U.S. Department of Labor provides numerous online resources about employment law and labor law including a Handy Reference to the Fair Labor Standards Act.

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Exempt vs Nonexempt Employees originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

The November jobs report came in worse than predicted. Recent reports suggesting that consumers were spending more money and that first-time unemployment claims were dropping suggested that the Great Recession might be coming to an end in 2010. Alas, the jobs report shatters that idea for the short-term.

A recovery without new jobs isn’t worth the paper it’s statistics are printed on. Ongoing economic recovery requires that not just the people who are currently employed go back to spending and non-fear based economic decisions, but also that more people join their ranks. Unfortunately, that can’t happen if people are not returning to being employed.

Smart money decisions will swing from taking advantage of low prices and low interest rates to saving cash. While increasing savings is good on a personal level, it isn’t necessarily good for the economy overall.

The possibility that jobless benefits will begin to run out for millions of Americans only adds an additional weight to the overall economy. Put it together with States losing billions of dollars worth of Federal money from economic stimulus programs ending in 2011, and you have a lot of negatives pulling on the first quarter of 2011.

The Federal Reserve’s recent announcement to continue providing monetary stimulus is no doubt tied to the expanding scope of economic concerns. Whether the Fed can keep the economy from falling backwards is unknown, but it can blunt the effects of all the negatives lining up against a strong economic recovery next year.

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Unemployment Report Bad News for 2011 Economy Recovery originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Recent new that payrolls fell in June here in the U.S. is bad news for the economy, but maybe not as bad as it is being made out by the headlines.

Let’s start with what the numbers are and move on to what they mean.

As with all economic statistics, employment numbers are compiled from numerous sources which provide an inconsistent snapshot of job activity from around the country. These numbers are made usable by applying a consistent mathematical methodology to them. This results in numbers that may or may not be in any way accurate. What makes the statistics relevant and useful is that because they are always calculated in the same manner looking at the numbers relative to previous statistics is a valid way to analyze growth or contraction in employment.

….More about personal finance tips.

Total Nonfarm Payroll US Department of Labor

The “employment number” everyone is talking about today is specifically the total nonfarm payroll numbers and is based upon a combination of data gathered from surveying people (the household survey data) and surveying businesses (the establishment survey data). Much like the Nielsen ratings for television, the numbers gleaned from the surveys are then extrapolated to represent the entire country.

What Job Losses Mean For The Economy

The June 2010 total nonfarm payroll declined by 125,000 for June. This is the “bad” news that headlines are shouting from the rooftops. The same report also says that the unemployment rate actually dropped from 9.7 percent to 9.5 percent. This is the “good” news that no one feels like playing up today.

Keep in mind that since today is July 2, that this data is in no way “final” and that the “revised” June payroll numbers will come out later.

So, what do the job losses in June mean for the economic outlook for the second half of 2010? What do they mean for the stock market recovery underway since 2009?

As always, viewing a single number without context is not meaningful. The June payroll numbers are the first to show overall job losses in 2010. That means that either:

• a) The U.S. economy is slowing back down
• b) The U.S. economy is moving sideways
• c) The U.S. economy continues to grow, but at a slow pace

Temporary employees working on the US Census 2010 were finished with their work in June. These employees alone counted for a drop of 225,000 jobs. More importantly, the private-sector actually added 83,00 jobs. This is in no way robust growth, but it is still positive. However, this low-level of growth also means inflation will not increase and the Fed can keep interest rates low.

The economic outlook for the rest of 2010 depends then on two factors. First, is how these numbers hold up when the revised numbers come out later. If the private-sector number remains positive, then that is good news overall. If, however, that number gets revised down and becomes negative, then we have a problem.

The second factor is the July employment numbers. If July also comes in negative, then one cannot help but consider that whatever growth the economy managed to squeeze out on the job front during 2010 is over for now, or at least on pause. If job growth stalls out now, there is nothing to kick it back into gear until the holiday shopping season with a few hundred thousand temporary jobs come back online.

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Economy Outlook 2010 2nd Half – June Job Losses originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com

Virtually every one of the so-called work from home jobs is a scam. Keep in mind that while plenty of Americans work from home, they do it for their regular jobs that they already have, and they probably still have to go into the office some times. These people did not find an online ad and get a working from home job with no experience by just filling out some forms and information over the Internet.

Just think it through for one minute. Doing something like data entry from home would be a great job, especially if you could get a job like that without any experience.

That means TONS of people would want these jobs. If that is the case, then why would any business pay high wages for that, especially to someone with no experience?

In fact, if you think about it for just one more second, you should end up with another conclusion. A job that can be done by anyone, from anywhere, without any extensive training, or previous experience is EXACTLY the kind of job that you can outsource overseas to someone making $5 a day.

How could it possibly be that any company or business in the world would pay you "$2,500 to $10,000 a month or more"?

Don’t be naive.

Work From Home Scams

1) Get Your Cash Then Disappear – They will either require you to send in money for something that sounds legit like a background check, or for some sort of kit to get started and you will either get back nothing, or something worthless.

2) Get Your Bank Account Info – They will say that you are hired but they only pay by direct deposit, so they need your bank account information. They may even ask you to sign a form. Then, they will use that info (and your signature if you filled out a form) to rob your account.

3) Get Your SSN for Identity Theft – We have to have you fill out a form so we can withhold taxes for you. That form includes a SSN and your name and address, everything an identity thief needs.

There are jobs that allow you to work from home, but NONE of them hire people without experience for high pay without meeting them.

If you insist on trying it out anyway, protect yourself!

1) Open a new bank account with no money in it. Give them this bank account information, and only if you HAVE TO.

2) Get a Tax ID number instead of your SSN. Working from home in this manner means being an independent contractor. Get a EIN from the IRS and use it instead of your Social Security Number on any paperwork. It is free and you can get one instantly by filling out an online EIN application form. They will probably just ignore you and move on to easier fish (which is proof it was a scam). If the do bother to come back and say it has to be a SSN, then move on.

3) Some jobs do require a background check, but they do not require that you pay for it with money order, cash, or check. Buy a prepaid Visa for the minimum amount and pay with that. Do NOT use a personal credit card.

But, seriously, you will save yourself a lot of time and trouble if you just re-read this article. There are no amazing "unheard of" opportunities out there that allow you to make great income from the comfort of your own home with virtually

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Make Money Working From Home Online Scams originally published at Personal Finance Blog - FinanceGourmet.com