Extend Jobless Benefits Now!

The employment report for February, released on Friday morning, was decent enough. The payroll figure, of 175,000 new jobs, was a bit higher than expected, although I wouldn’t attach very much significance to that. Given the statistical margin of error of plus or minus 90,000, it’s not clear that job creation was any different in February than it was in January, which had a revised payroll figure of 129,000.

In any case, the report confirms that employment creation has slowed down over the past three months. From January, 2013, to November, 2013, the payroll figure averaged about 200,000. Since then, the average has been about 130,000. Some of that decline was almost certainly owing to the frigid weather; precisely how much, we don’t know. But as temperatures rise over the next couple of months, the job figures are likely to pick up again. The stock market rose modestly after the report came out, and it’s widely expected that the Federal Reserve will continue its policy of gradually drawing down the amount of money it is pumping into the economy.

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