March jobs lower than expected (but still higher than Bush's 8-year average)

That is condensed from a column by Robet Reich, who was the Secretary of Labor during the Clinton Admiistration, a job he was highly succdssful at. He is, in my humble opinion, one of THE smartest people in the country when it comes to the economy and the job market. You can read the entire column here:         http://robertreich.org/

ROBERT REICH WRITES:
The economy added only 120,000 jobs in March – down from the rate of more than 200,000 in each of the preceding three months. The rate of unemployment dropped from 8.3 to 8.2 percent mainly because fewer people were searching for jobs – and that rate depends on how many people are actively looking.


It’s way too early to conclude the jobs recovery is stalling, but there’s reason for concern.
Remember: Consumer spending is 70 percent of the economy. Employers won’t hire without enough sales to justify the additional hires.

The reason consumers aren’t spending more is they don’t have the money. 

The economy has been growing but almost all the gains have gone to the very top. As I’ve noted, this is the most lopsided recovery on record.

You will hear other theories about the hiring slowdown, but they don’t wash:

It’s not due to “uncertainty” about the economy.
It’s not because of fears about a European recession.
And it’s not about gas prices
or the rise in healthcare insurance premiums.

It’s because consumers’ pockets are almost empty.

That's The Word from The Man.

As I mentioned, Mr. Reich knows what he is talking about. He points out that the financial numbers prove that the stimulus worked to save us from falling into a deep depression, but that it simply wasn't large enough for the size of the problem. We were in a deep, deep hole when Obama took office, and you can't attack a billion dollar problem with a million dollar solution.

As I have written often, the way out a recession is to spend money to stimulate growth, and with growth comes a balanced budget. Remember, we did this just ten years ago!  Ignore what the GOP/Tea Partiers claim that the problem is all due to spending.  The facts don't bear this out.  While we can and should cut spending to help balance the budget, we can do a great deal of that by improving the efficiency of our government programs. We havent been 'spending ourselves into this problem, and we can't balance the budget by cutting services.  We created the hug deficit when we cut off the revenue to the government with giant tax cuts, at the same time we were waging two wars!  The good news is that WE CAN FIX THAT!  By restoring the tax rates of the Clinton years, by fully implementing the Affordable Care Act ("Obama-Cares")by making smart cuts to so-called 'entitlements, and by speindg stimulus money to repair our crumbling infrastructure and bring the solar power and other alternative energy industries up to scale,  we will put people to work, which puts money in people's pockets, which drives up consumer spending, which stimulates growth and which will bring the budget backinto balance as it was when Clinton left office.

The 'austerity' approach is currently bankrupting several countries in Europe, and it will bankrupt us if we don't wise up.

The reaons the economy isn't recovering faster is simply that the goverment is spending less and less money. When Ronald Reagan had to get out of his recession, the government spent millions of dollars in stimulus spending, whic kick-started the economy and led to Reagan's 2nd term sucess.

When Clinton inherited the first Bush's recession, he too increased government spending, which resulted in growth, which resulted in a surplus for four straight years!

The Tea Party is wrong in their 'no taxes and cut benefits' approach. It hasn't' worked before, it isn't working now, and it won't work the future.