Economists: Obamacare, Not Sequestration, a Factor in "Awful" March Jobs Numbers

  

 

James Pethokoukis @JimPethokoukis

10.98%: What the unemployment rate would be if labor force participation was the same as in January 2009

Kevin reviewed many of the numbers earlier, calling today's report "mediocre."  I'd say that's generous:

Employers added a disappointing 88,000 jobs in March, confirming fears of a slowdown in payroll growth that economists say could persist for several months. The number of new jobs is less than half what economists had forecast. The unemployment rate fell to 7.6% from 7.7%, largely because 496,000 Americans stopped working or looking for work, the Labor Department said Friday in its monthly employment report. Futures trading on Wall Street in major indexes began sinking as soon as the report was released. And investors fled to the safety of U.S. Treasury bonds, where prices soared and yields plummeted.

Former CBO director Douglas Holtz-Eakin describes the totality of the new report as "awful." Few liberal economists can muster the strength to disagree.  The civilian workforce participation rate is the real story today, with nearly half-a-million Americans giving up looking for work.  Perversely, this allowed the official U-3 unemployment rate to tick down by a notch, but analysts from across the spectrum recognize that result as fool's gold.  The participation rate is now a paltry 63.3 percent, the lowest it's been since 1978.  This is a very disappointing report, which Obama cheerleaders will try to blame on his sequester cuts -- which, in turn, they'll try to blame on Republicans.  But these are pre-sequester numbers.  Before the furloughs.  Before any possible layoffs.  Don't ask me, ask Obama's favorite economist:

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