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March 8th, 2013
09:45 PM ET
Dow soars, unemployment drops amid the looming impact of spending cuts
Today stocks wrapped up one of the best weeks of the year and new government date show the unemployment rate dropped from 7.9% to 7.7% as the country added 236,000 jobs in February.
Today's report is based on data from last month, and doesn't take into account the $85 billion across-the-board spending cuts that went into effect.
President Obama issued a warning just a few weeks ago.
"People will lose their jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up again," Obama said.
OutFront tonight: Daniel Altman, economics professor at NYU and Doug Holtz-Eakin, former Director of the Congressional Budget Office.
Dows soar, its this the new normal?
Of course the labor force participation rate is decreasing! The Baby Boomers, they're old! My Dad is just waiting for the day I sign an offer for a FT job so he can put in his retirement notice. Sure hope I can get him there soon.
UPDATE: Good news! Looks like Dad will be able to retire soon. Dunno about the national unemployment rate, but at least at our household, we're saying Thank You Obama!
UPDATE Pt 2: The economy must be roaring back like a lion, because now I got two competing job offers fr really great multinational companies. Whichever one I turn down I'm gonna feel really bad about, but I guess that's a high quality problem to have.
I know anecdotes =/= hard evidence, but when I go from getting laid off from a bartending job after two terms of a GOP administration, to being offered two really lucrative finance gigs after two terms of a Dem administration, that seems pretty real to me.