Reuters (01/09/14) Richard Cowan

A compromise plan to extend unemployment benefits proposed by Senate Democrats, including structural changes and planned funding requested by Republicans, has stalled in the U.S. Senate. Republicans rejected the initiative. While Democrats have the majority, they need Republican support to overcome procedural maneuvers to win passage.

Approximately 1.4 million people have been left without weekly benefits because of the expiration of extended unemployment insurance. Democrats have pushed for a one-year extension, while Republicans have offered support for a three-month extension.

Bloomberg Businessweek (01/09/14) Anna-Louise Jackson; Anthony Feld

Janet Yellen, the incoming chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, is monitoring a new trend—more people are choosing to quit their jobs as their confidence about business conditions grows. Information about voluntary separations is one of six gauges Yellen says she uses to assess the strength of the labor market. At a conference last spring, she said, “a pickup in the quit rate, which also remains at a low level, would signal that workers perceive that their chances to be rehired are good— in other words, that labor demand has strengthened.”

The quit rate has been “slowly grinding higher” and likely will continue to increase this year, says Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group, an institutional equity-trading broker. However, Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., disagrees. The underlying data show that “things don’t look as good as they seem,” he says.

The number of people who quit their jobs in October is about 24% below a pre-recession peak of 3.1 million in November 2006, when the quit ratio was 58%, according to seasonally adjusted numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor.

New York Times (01/10/14) Nelson D. Schwartz

A number of economists have revised their U.S. economic forecasts as exports have risen, the trade deficit has declined over four years, consumer spending has improved, and job creation has slowly picked up. Expectations for growth in late 2013 and early 2014 could signal a more sustained economic expansion, but many economists still remain cautious.

Barclays chief U.S. economist Dean Maki indicates the economy expanded at an annualized pace of 3.0% in October, November, and December, and he estimates that consumer spending increased at a 3.8% rate in the same period, the fastest in three years. Should Maki’s forecasts be correct, the American economy would have grown at a 3.0% rate in the fourth quarter, after the 4.1% gain in the third quarter, marking the best back-to-back quarterly performance in two years and adding up to a gain for the year of about 2.7%.