How the Government Measures Unemployment

by Steven Kruskamp on

March 1st, 2010

Where do the statistics come from?

Early each month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) of the U.S. Department of Labor announces the total number of employed and unemployed persons in the United States for the previous month, along with many characteristics of such persons.

The Government conducts a monthly sample survey called the Current Population Survey (CPS) to measure the extent of unemployment in the country. There are about 60,000 households in the sample for this survey.

Each month, 2,200 Census Bureau employees interview persons in the sample households for information on the labor force activities (jobholding and jobseeking) or non-labor force status of the members of these households during the survey reference week. This information relates to all household members 15 years of age and over. Each person is classified according to the activities he or she engaged in during the reference week.

What are the basic concepts of employment and unemployment?

In identifying the employed and unemployed the sample survey respondents are classified as follows:

People with jobs are employed.
People who are jobless, looking for jobs, and available for work are unemployed.
People who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force

Who is counted as employed?

People are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey week. This includes all part-time and temporary work, as well as regular full-time, year-round employment.

Who is counted as unemployed?

Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work.

The total unemployment figures cover more than the number of persons who have lost jobs. It includes persons who have quit their jobs to look for other employment, workers whose temporary jobs have ended, persons looking for their first jobs, and experienced workers looking for jobs after an absence from the labor force.

Who is not in the labor force?

Labor force measures are based on the civilian noninstitutional population 16 years old and over. The labor force is made up of the employed and the unemployed. The remainder—those who have no job and are not looking for one—are counted as “not in the labor force.” Many who are not in the labor force are going to school or are retired.

Persons who are not in the labor force but are considered to be “marginally attached to the labor force” are those who are not currently looking for work (and therefore are not counted as unemployed), but who nevertheless have demonstrated some degree Read the rest of this entry »

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Should I close my credit card?

by Wade Barnes on

February 24th, 2010

 There has been a lot of discussion this week revolving around the Credit Card reformation act that became effective this week (If you missed the conversation, check out the Credit Legislation post for details).   A result of the proposed legislation was a knee jerk reaction by the credit card companies to raise rates across the board to all of their customers, as future rate hikes will be regulated a bit more aggressively.  Over the past few months, many good customers whose rates have been hiked now feel slighted and want to close their account with their credit card holder.  By all means, if you feel so strongly don’t let me discourage you from acting.  On the flip side, this same legislation has unintentionally made credit harder to come by (and likely more expensive), so you may want to consider this before axing your old account.  On top of this, think through what affects this may have on your credit rating.

I had lunch with a friend a few weeks ago who is an executive at a local business.  He has never been late on his payments, never gone over his credit limit, has excellent credit, a stable job with a solid income but was still a victim of blanket rate increases by his unnamed credit card company.  Out of frustration, he wanted to close this account that has been opened for over 20 years. 

The reality of it is, my friend never carries a balance on their card and hence is never affected by the associated interest rate.  Even if a balance was carried from month to month, I’d check out the competition’s rate before moving a balance as the grass isn’t always greener. 

On to the core issue: If they close their credit card, an account with an excellent history, their credit score will take an immediate hit – especially if they open a new card in its place.  Not only would they close a beneficial account in their credit history, they would also reduce the available credit limit, which could affect the credit usage ratio (the amount of revolving credit outstanding / the total credit limit).  So, there are two factors that could possibly affect your credit score by closing an account with a solid history to keep in mind before jumping ship.  Keep in mind though, with a stable credit rating, even this minor hit won’t affect your overall rating in the long-term and shouldn’t be of great concern but there are consequences to every action that should be considered before making any financial decision. 

For more information on how credit scores are calculated and factors that affect your score, check out the post on maintaining credit ratings during tough timesor feel free to be in touch for more information (wbarnes@1stmarinerbank.com). 

As always, I welcome questions and conversations about situations you may have encountered and how these recent changes have affected you.

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What Relationship Banking is All About

by Elizabeth Sherman on

February 24th, 2010

In April, 2009, Greater Grace World Outreach, a local religious organization, extended us the courtesy of a meeting.  The purpose of the meeting was to try to obtain their banking business.

“We at Greater Grace World Outreach had been looking for some time to reduce high bank fees and actually agreed to move our accounts to another well known national bank. Unfortunately, the conversion failed as that bank was unable to follow through with the service necessary to complete the transition.  This unpleasant and expensive experience left us very skeptical about attempting another change”. – Pastor Peter Taggart

After meeting with Pastor Taggart, Jason Dieter and I conducted an analysis of the existing accounts and fees and determined 1st Mariner could save the church money without sacrificing service. A review of 1st Mariner’s proposal convinced Greater Grace to move their banking relationship. 

As with any change, there were bumps in the road.  By keeping an open line of communication between the bank and the church, issues were resolved in a timely way to the customer’s satisfaction.  

“Instead of being handed from department to department, we discovered the same people who handled the upfront sale were just as committed to the back end service.  Promises were kept, deadlines were met, calls were returned, and problems were quickly resolved”. – Pastor Peter Taggart

In December 2009, after reviewing their expenses for the year, Greater Grace determined they saved over $3,000 in banking fees in 2009, without any loss of service.  

“Not only have we realized lower costs, we also have a much more satisfactory relationship with our bank”. – Pastor Peter Taggart

In January 2010, our team evaluated the relationship in an effort to improve operational efficiency and lower the church’s cost of banking services.

 This is what relationship banking is all about!

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Meeting with FISC, a Non-Profit Research Organization in Japan

by Kevin Lynch on

February 9th, 2010

Despite the challenging  travel conditions around Baltimore yesterday, we had the pleasure of meeting with Daisuke Ishii and Yukihisa Hode, two Senior Researchers from The Center for Financial Industry Information Systems (Japan). The FISC is a Japanese nonprofit research organization founded in 1984 and supported by some 700 Japanese financial services organizations and vendors marketing to that industry. Their mission is to engage in research services pertaining to the Japanese financial services industry.The meeting was coordinated by Michael Parentice, an independent consultant based in the United States.

FISC’s current research project relates to new media and social networking in Japan’s financial services industry.  As input they are seeking best practice examples from leading U.S. financial institutions that are leaders in the use of social media. Based on Mr. Prentice’s research, he felt that we were one of the organizations that they should meet. This was the first visit on their five day trip across the country that includes meetings with Bank of America, Umpqua Bank, and Wells Fargo. We are honored to be included in this short list of financial institutions.

As we discussed the evolution of our efforts, it became clear that there are signficant challenges to FI’s involvement in social networks. The Japanese culture is one of collaboration and consensus building. So many of the initial social media efforts have focused on internal corporate use for information sharing and communication. Given the conservative nature of the banking industry, it has been very difficult to get consensus across the organization to engage their customers in the same way. It will be interesting to see how this FISC report on the US bank’s efforts will impact them in the long term.  We’ll keep you posted when we get the final report.

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Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon

by Kevin Lynch on

February 2nd, 2010

1st Mariner Bank has been a strong supporter of the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE). NFTE’s mission is to ” provide entrepreneurship education programs to young people from low-income communities.” The goal is to encourage entrepreneurship, increase financial literacy, and provide participants a reason to stay in school and continue their education. The Baltimore NFTE office works with over 200 middle and high school students through teachers certified to teach the NFTE curriculum. Throughout the year, the students identify a business idea, build a business plan and, if possible, establish a business. They work with mentors from the private sector to refine their business plans and develop their businesses. To encourage these young entrepreneurs, there are numerous local and regional business plan competitions, where they compete against students from other schools for cash prizes.

William Mack and Ja'Mal Wills- J & W Sensations

For those who are good enough to win these local competitions, there is the opportunity to be nominated to compete in the national business plan competition in New York, for $10,000. Ten9Eight: Shoot for the Moon , from award-winning filmmaker Mary Mazzio, follows these students, from all around the country, as they prepare for and compete in this competition. I, along with my fellow employee Wade Barnes, was the mentor for two students from Patterson High School, William Mack and Ja’Mal Wills, who are featured in this film. Their company, J & W Sensations, produces an all natural skin lotion. The film was released nationally in November and will debut on BET this Sunday, February 7th at 12 noon. I encourage everyone to watch this incredibly powerful and moving story about these young entrepreneurs.

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Things are Better, but You’re Still Nervous

by Anirban Basu on

January 14th, 2010

So are we…

Here’s the good news – 2009 is over.  Here’s some more good news – 2010 will be better for the economy.  Here’s the bad news – 2011 might not be and that implies that 2010 could be a volatile year for stock prices, which appear to lead the economy by six months or so.  Bottom line:  you should be prepared for a roller coaster ride this year as investors experience mood swings in the face of rapidly shifting economic forecasts and a world replete with geo-political uncertainty.

One might be tempted to dismiss this gloomy chatter.  After all, the gloom and doomers have been talking about foreclosures, weak bank balance sheets, high unemployment, etc., for months only to watch the market surge ahead, creating significant wealth for believers in the process.  In other words, since March of last year, it hasn’t paid to be a contrarian.  After a January/February 2009 market swoon that left markets tapping against lows not felt for a decade, U.S. equities presided over a massive rally that began on March 9th and lasted virtually through the balance of the year with almost no interruption and reduced volatility.  The S&P 500 rose nearly 24 percent for the year, while the more heavily cyclical and economically sensitive tech-laden Nasdaq was up a whopping 44 percent.

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How to help Haiti

by Steven Kruskamp on

January 14th, 2010

Unless you’ve been completely cut off from all civilization you have read or heard about the devastating magnitude 7.0 earthquake that hit Haiti on Tuesday.  The Red Cross has estimated that as many as 3 million people have been affected by the quake with a possibility of 100,000 deaths.  This is a horrible disaster and our thoughts and prayers go out to anyone who has been affected by it. 

Many around the bank have been asking how they can help.  So, I decided to put together a short list of how and where you can donate:

Before giving to any site, CBS News recommends checking out the organization at The Foundation Center web site to verify legitimacy via tax fillings and non-profit status.

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Purple Fever: Catch It!

by Kevin Lynch on

January 12th, 2010

Like the majority of Baltimoreans, we were really excited to see Baltimore’s huge win over New England this past Sunday. I am still a little hoarse from yelling at the tv screen. To make the victory even sweeter, I had a friendly wager with some New England fans: New England Clam Chowder for Maryland Crab Soup. Needless to say, we’ll be enjoying some “Chowdah” in the very near future.

So, as the city is bathed in purple lighting and the Ravens flags fly, we’ll be wearing our purple proudly on Friday. Good luck to our guys as they take on the team from Indianapolis, and most especially to Joe Flacco, Baltimore’s Quarterback, from Baltimore’s Bank. Go get ‘em Joe!

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1st Mariner Bank: Influential marketers of 2009

by Steven Kruskamp on

December 31st, 2009

We are pretty proud of the response that we are seeing from the financial services (FI) community on our online marketing efforts.  In 2009, we put a heavy emphasis on social media and clearly others have taken notice.  Yesterday, Truebridge Financial Marketing, a consultancy based out of Boston, blogged about the most influential FI marketers of 2009.   

These banks and credit unions are showing signs that they’re either moving in the direction of the new rules or in some cases, making it a top priority.  But they’re clearly ahead of the curve in the financial industry.  

On the list, 1st Mariner Bank…  Saaaa-weet!   That’s right, we are up there with other banking giants like BofA and Wells Fargo.  I don’t know about you but it gives me a warm feeling to know that your local bank is providing the same - and more often than not, a better – level of customer service as institutions that are multiple times larger.  The web has not only empowered you as a consumer, but it has also empowered the smaller institutions and created a level playing field. 

Let us know what you think of our social media efforts by commenting below and be sure to check out the Truebridge blog post.

3 commentsposted in 1st Mariner Bank, Social Media

Question of the Month

by Steven Kruskamp on

December 21st, 2009

We have received a lot of questions from our customers, friends and associates lately on what will happen to housing prices in the new year.  We could do research, however, any of our comments would be pure speculation.  Instead, we would prefer to hear your thoughts and opinions. 

Use the comment feature below to post your perspective.  We are interested in what you have to say.

1 commentposted in 1st Mariner Bank, Question of the Month

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