Via The Note for 04/02/04:

According to ABC News’ Ramona Schindelheim’s tally, that’s 513,000 new jobs since the beginning of the year. 759,000 since last August. Seven consecutive months of job growth, following seven months of job losses. The manufacturing sector did not lose jobs for the first time in 43 months. (More …)

Happy dance! Ow, charlie horse …

The Bush Administration called the tax cut package, which was passed in May 2003 and took effect in July 2003, its “Jobs and Growth Plan.” The president’s economics staff, the Council of Economic Advisers (see background documents), projected that the plan would result in the creation of 5.5 million jobs by the end of 2004?306,000 new jobs each month, starting in July 2003. After eight months of falling considerably short of that projection, job gains for the month of March finally hit that level. For the nine months as a whole, however, the administration projected that a total of 2,754,000 jobs would be created after the tax cuts took effect. In fact, only 689,000 jobs were created over that period for a cumulative shortfall of 2,065,000 jobs. [Graphs and background documents at link. Scroll down to “Bush Administration’s tax cuts falling short in job creation”]

I’d love to be wrong on my suspicion that this, like all the other “we’re turning the corner” happy dances won’t be revised late tonight with a terse AP article that begins, “Um … *cough* …”

Update: I thought I’d do a late night check for revisions and this is what the picture looks like without cosmetics.

March’s overall payroll increase of 308,000 was the highest since a match in April 2000. The last time more jobs were added was in March 2000, with an increase of 493,000.

But economists remained cautious. “It is too early to celebrate,” said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo in Minneapolis. He noted that most of the increase was because of part-time workers. The number of people who worked part time for economic reasons rose to 4.7 million in March, up from 4.4 million the previous month.

“The average duration of unemployment has been lengthening, persuading unemployed workers to accept part-time jobs,” Sohn said. In March, there were 8.35 million people unemployed, compared with 8.17 million the previous month. The average duration of unemployment has been more than 20 weeks, a 20-year high.

Technical factors also contributed to the overall hiring increase, Sohn said. Good weather helped boost employment in construction, which rose by 71,000 last month. The end of a strike by California grocery workers was a big factor in the increase in retailers’ payrolls, which were up by 47,000.

The average monthly gain in jobs in the past eight months has been about 95,000 ? far below the 150,000 to 200,000 jobs needed to absorb new entrants into the labor force, Sohn said. Like last month, the unemployment rate could rise in coming months as workers decide to resume their job searches. (04/02/04 AP/Strope)

I accept the BushCo explanation that these problems are due to my lack of optimism, and not, I repeat, not the Frat Boy in Chief’s ruinous economic policies.