Jobs

Mark Knoller from CBS News reports this morning that President Obama, in a statement in the Rose Garden, “will stress his budget’s top objective is to boost the economy and create jobs.” To do that, he’ll have to contradict what he previously described as “the consensus among people who know the economy best.

While the talk among the political class is of guns and gay marriage, the concern out in the country is, doubtless, about jobs and economic growth.

When the monthly employment report came out Friday morning, Alan Krueger, Chairman of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, quickly commented on the White House blog.  He began with the observation that "more work remains to be done":

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.

The latest jobs numbers, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

Nonfarm payroll employment edged up in March (+88,000), and the unemployment rate was little changed at 7.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment grew in professional and business services and in health care but declined in retail trade.

Household Survey Data

Disappointing first time claims numbers as Reuters reports:

Michelle Jamrisko at Bloomberg reports:

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

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."