Economy

The White House appears sanguine about a jobs report that one of its former economic advisors has described as a "punch to the gut."

White House economist Alan Krueger said this morning on CNBC that today's jobs report doesn't change the president's economic policy:

"Dr. Krueger," Jim Cramer asked, "is there anything that just happens today--the president comes out, says, listen, we got together right now with Republican, we go to do something. This is a really bad number. Is there anything that just changes today?"

Zero Hedge goes inside the 7.6 and 88,000 numbers, and reports:

Austan Goolsbee, a former economic adviser to President Obama, called this morning's jobs report "a punch to the gut":

"We all overshot it," said Goolsbee on CNBC. "This is a punch to the gut. This is not a good number."

He went to blame sequestration, though a CNBC anchor interrupted him to say that it's result of the payroll tax hike.

Disappointing first time claims numbers as Reuters reports:

There is a great tendency both here and abroad to concentrate on the entertaining features of American politics:

In an article titled, "Use of Food Stamps Swells Even as Economy Improves," the Wall Street Journal reports that "The financial crisis is over and the recession ended in 2009. But one of the federal government's biggest social welfare programs, which expanded when the economy convulsed, isn't shrinking back alongside the recovery."

Since just after his reelection last year, Barack Obama's job approval rating has dropped 8 points, according to a poll from Pew. Forty-seven percent approve of Obama's job, down from 55 percent in December.

Americans' economic outlook has soured, too. Here's more from Pew:

The reading fell to 71.8 from 77.6 in February, as Bloomberg reports.  Almost as disturbing as the actual decline is the gap between what the experts predicted and what actually came to pass.  This was, according to Zero Hedge, "the biggest miss on record."

President Obama welcomed Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah of Brunei to the White House today, and said that while he's in America he should "do some shopping" here to "strengthen the U.S. economy." The sultan is estimated to be worth more than $20 billion. 

Via the pool report:

For someone who aggressively campaigned on the notion that the Republican party cares disproportionately about the rich, President Obama’s economic scorecard is rather illuminating.