Recent Stories with tag rate

Okay, I won't lie. It's always a good time to advertise on The SunBreak if you want to reach Seattle readers at really great rates.

Over 120,000 people have visited The SunBreak since we launched in September of last year, the majority of them from Washington State. That isn't that surprising, given our Seattle news and culture focus; serving our Seattle audience first is one way we stand out. It's easy to pump page views with pop culture, but we want this to be a local water cooler, for people around here.

We've served up 300,000 page views to what Quantcast calls a "fairly wealthy, more educated, skewing older, slightly male slanted audience." (Fairly wealthy as in 63 percent earn over $60,000 per year, and 35 percent earn over $100,000.) They're interested more than average in news and politics, science and nature, travel, and sports.

Currently, we see over 10,000 unique visitors per month, with over 40,000 page views. If you bought the most expensive banner ad on the site, every single impression, it would cost $1,200 for a whole month. I still can't get over how inexpensive online advertising is--speaking as someone who's paid $500 for a single ad on a single page of a weekly. And that was on sale.

You can buy the top sidebar ad for $150 per month. (Note: That's going to change soon, it's actually an introductory offer from when we had less traffic.)

We can also offer custom ad placement and sponsorships for story categories, so you can target readers with specific interests. (We don't sell page-specific ads though, sorry. That's a little too granular to be worthwhile.) If you have questions or offers (Yes, non-profits, we can give you a discounted rate), email us: advertise at sunbreakmagazine.com. And thanks for supporting local media!

As much as I like to rail about government bureaucracy--come on, who doesn't?--I often see signs that our government is populated by hard-working, competent people. (Whoops, there go our eastern Washington readers.)

Yesterday I wondered aloud at the seeming discrepancy between a report that the state added 12,000 jobs in January, and another report that indicated our unemployment rate had either stayed the same or edged up imperceptibly.

Sheryl Hutchison, the state's Employment Security Department communications director, wrote in to explain, in refreshingly clear terms:

On the surface, it seems illogical that the unemployment rate could increase at the same time jobs are increasing. The answer lies in the definition of "labor force."

As the economy starts to improve and more jobs become available, discouraged workers will start looking for work again--thus increasing the total size of the work force. Since these individuals haven't found a job yet, it causes the unemployment rate to increase.

For several months now, our economists have been predicting this phenomenon would occur as the economy starts to pick up--and it appears that it's starting to happen. As illogical as it seems, it's actually a positive sign that the economy is starting to move again.

The question of whether an unemployment rate is what it says it is, if it doesn't count all the ready-to-work unemployed, aside, at least it makes sense. If and when the job market starts to get back to its feet, the news that people are hiring will draw thousands back to the labor force. The Seattle Times economy reporter Jon Talton vouches for this reading in his post today:...

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Despite the PSBJ headline, "Washington unemployment rate rises to 9.3 percent," there's been no substantial change in unemployment. January's unemployment splits the difference between December's estimated percentage (9.5) and revised downward final (9.2).

What's slightly confusing is that the state claims to have added over 12,000 jobs in January. The Tacoma News Tribune says "job gains occurred in retail trade, educational and health services, leisure and hospitality, professional and business services, manufacturing and aerospace and parts manufacturing."

That would be three percent of the approximately 395,000 Washingtonians who are unemployed.

Statements were issued: "This is a positive sign for Washington state," said Gov. Chris Gregoire. "It’s encouraging to see jobs finally coming back," said ESD Commissioner Karen Lee. No one addressed the question of how 12,000 new hires would completely fail to impact unemployment. It's as if the two measurements had been somehow decoupled for the benefit of political press releases.