SO-SO JOBS REPORT – AT 8:42 A.M. ET:  The administration will spin this as great economic news.  It's nothing of the kind.  It's mediocre.  From The New York Times:

The economy added 192,000 jobs in March, as the end of winter and better weather in many parts of the country encouraged employers to begin hiring workers slightly more aggressively.

The new data, released by the Labor Department on Friday morning, suggested businesses did a bit of catching up last month, but not as much as some analysts had predicted.

The unemployment rate remained flat from last month, at 6.7 percent.

After a surge last fall, job creation slowed noticeably in December and January, setting off a debate over whether wintry weather was to blame for the weakness or something more fundamental in the economy was at work.

COMMENT:  A likely story.  As we've noted, it takes about 150,000 new jobs every month just to keep up with population growth.  So our net growth last month was about 42,000 jobs.  That's nothing in an economy like ours.

And many of the jobs we "create" turn out to be part-time, or below the level of the last job the job seeker had.

We are not really making progress, and I think Americans know it.

April 4,  2014