Mediocre Employment numbers

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Friday March 04, 2011 · 12:40 PM PST

2011/03/04 · 12:40

The New York Times reports that Spurred by Private Hiring, Job Growth Gathers Steam. The article notes that

If from here on out the country adds 200,000 jobs every month, it would take more than three years for the economy to regain the employment levels it had before the recession. And that does not take into account the fact that the working-age population has continued to grow — meaning that if the economy were healthy, it would have more jobs today than we had before the recession.

Sadly if we consider a two month average, say January and February we are talking only of about 80,000 jobs a month, a sad state of affairs.

The problem we are faced with is not the two month average. As Professor Krugman points out in How to Kill a Recovery there are other serious problems such as price increases in commodities (oil and food) along with

The clear and present danger to recovery, however, comes from politics — specifically, the demand from House Republicans that the government immediately slash spending on infant nutrition, disease control, clean water and more. Quite aside from their negative long-run consequences, these cuts would lead, directly and indirectly, to the elimination of hundreds of thousands of jobs — and this could short-circuit the virtuous circle of rising incomes and improving finances.

The bottom line is the recovery is not "fragile" as Krugman says, rather it is insufficient for the US and the world.

So what ya going to do about it?

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