Despite constant budget fights in Washington, the U.S. economy managed one of the best months for job gains in the past year in February, driving the unemployment rate to its lowest level in more than four years.
But the job market would be even better, and the unemployment rate even lower, had not the government spent most of the recovery cutting spending and jobs. And though Wall Street may cheer February's jobs report, the pain of government cutbacks looks to get worse as the year goes on.
U.S. employers added 236,000 jobs to non-farm payrolls in February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday, up from 119,000 in January. That was the best payroll growth since 247,000 jobs last November and the second-best month for job growth of the past 12 months.
The unemployment rate dropped to 7.7 percent from 7.9 percent in January, with 12 million people looking for work. That is the lowest unemployment rate since December 2008, when the rate was 7.3 percent.
"The recovery is gathering momentum," Paul Ashworth, chief U.S. economist at Capital Economics, wrote in a note. But U.S. non-farm payrolls are still 3 million jobs shy of their pre-recession highs, and the jobless rate is still too high to convince the Federal Reserve to stop pumping cash into the economy.
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Posted By: Jen Fad
Monday, March 11th 2013 at 5:08PM
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