BLS Unemployment Situation: 192,000 jobs added in March. Unemployment rate holds at 6.7% as citizens return to the labor force, boosting the participation rate.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm

http://mam.econoday.com/byshoweventfull.asp?fid=461117&cust=mam&year=2014&lid=0&prev=/byweek.asp#top

PT jobs suck

Average weekly hours:

Feb 2014: 34.3

Mar 2014: 34.5


Here is a good question for a public educator:  PACEDOG, if the average of something increases from one period to the next, what can we say occurred between the last period and the current period?  Were the observations on average greater or less than the previous period's average?

Put another way.  If you had an 87 average in a class last week, and then you have a 92 today.  What happened between last week and today?

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t18.htm

http://www.gallup.com/poll/168218/payroll-population-rate-march.aspx

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The U.S. Payroll to Population employment rate (P2P), as measured by Gallup, was 42.7% in March. This is down slightly from 43.1% in February, but remains slightly up from 42.0% from January. P2P so far in 2014 remains below the averages for 2013 (43.8%) and 2012 (44.4%).

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm

The economy continues to gain jobs, but the number of long-term unemployed is nearly double what it was when Obama became president.
◾Wages remain stagnant, increasing a scant 0.3 percent after inflation during Obama’s time. Meanwhile corporate profits are running 178 percent higher than just before he took office, and stock prices have doubled.
◾The number of low-income persons on food stamps remains just below the record level reached in 2012, with 15 percent of the population still getting benefits.
◾Health care spending has increased 15.8 percent under Obama, which is faster than inflation but modest by historical standards. But there’s scant evidence that the Affordable Care Act is causing the slowdown. The government economists and statisticians who track the spending said the law’s impact has been “minimal.”
◾U.S. exports have gone up just 34 percent — leaving the president far short of his announced goal of doubling them by the end of this year.
◾The number of people held prisoner at Guantanamo — which the president once ordered closed by January 2010 — is down only 36 percent.
◾The federal debt owed to the public has nearly doubled since Obama was sworn in, increasing by 95 percent.
http://www.factcheck.org/2014/01/obamas-numbers-january-2014-update/

Let's look at the long term unemployed.


For the literate:

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks or more), at 3.7 million, changed little in March; these individuals accounted for 35.8 percent of the unemployed.  The number of long-term unemployed was down by 837,000 over the year. (See table A-12.)

And for GOP supporters: