The March jobs numbers are in, and they're absolutely terrible. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is reporting a positively meager 88,000 jobs were added during the month - a number so small it isn't even enough to keep pace with population growth. Despite that, the overall unemployment number dropped from 7.7 to 7.6%.
Sadly, this is because almost 700,000 people simply stopped looking for work. That's right; the number of people who gave up on the job search outpaced job creation by more than a 7 to 1 margin. This came as a surprise to administration forecasters who'd been expecting to add anywhere between 150,000 and 200,000 workers to the employment rolls.
There are now 89,967,000 Americans not in the workforce. That's a new record, and it means the United States currently boasts its smallest workforce since 1979.
While administration loyalists are trying their best to paint this as a result of the sequester, the reality is that it's more directly attributable to the Obama payroll tax increases that went into effect in January, and employer uncertainty about the negative impacts of the looming Obamacare regulations.
Fortunately, the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Alan Krueger, was able to simply deny reality via the White House website.
"While more work remains to be done," Krueger wrote. "Today’s employment report provides further evidence that the U.S. economy is continuing to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression."
Surely, you feel better already.
Here's a clip of Austin Goolsbee, former Obama economic advisor, admitting that the new numbers are awful, calling them "a punch in the gut." He tries, very, very, unsuccessfully, to blame the sequester.
