The February jobs report released last week by the Bureau of Labor Statistics might have been surprisingly strong, offering some hope that the U.S. economy can keep growing at a moderately healthy pace as private- sector employers and consumers try to shrug off the added fiscal austerity from Washington.

Even so, the jobs market is far weaker than it has been at similar points following previous recessions. What’s more, as Jacob Goldstein at Planet...

The slow and not-so-steady climb back from the Great Recession is nearing another milestone. The total net worth of U.S. households and non-profits is nearly back to 2007 levels, according to flow of funds data released by the Federal Reserve.

A rebounding housing market and booming stock market helped household net worth climb $1.17 trillion over the fourth quarter of 2012. The increase brought total net worth for households and non-profits up 9 percent from the end...

Analysts are ratcheting up their estimates of the economic costs resulting from superstorm Sandy, with the latest estimates climbing to $50 billion.
 
Before Sandy made landfall, Eqecat, a catastrophe-modeling firm that serves insurance companies, had estimated that it would cause between $10 billion and $20 billion in damage, with half of that covered by insurers. Today, the firm released updated estimates, saying that total economic costs will be between $30 billion and $50 billion. Of that, $10 billion to $20 billion will be insured.
 
“The...

Hey, Microsoft, how do you like them Apples?

With its stock ending the day up 2.63 percent to $665.15, Apple on Monday became the most valuable public company in history, breaking a record for market capitalization that Microsoft had set in December 1999.

In the late 1990s, as technology and Internet stocks were flying high, Microsoft catapulted past behemoths like Coca-Cola and General Electric (the previous No. 1) to become the world’s most valuable company, eventually becoming the first to top $500 billion in market cap. On December 27, 1999...