White House Economic Adviser: ‘Don’t Read Too Much’ Into the Jobs Numbers

‘142,000 was a little below expectations, and other months, it’s a little above expectations’

TODD: “Jason, do you share the view of Mark Zandi, that these last two jobs reports are more about weather than the state of the economy?”

FURMAN: “You know, I think that you don't want to read too much -- as I said to you before, Chuck -- in any given month's jobs reports, if you look at the last twelve months, it's 2.3 million private sector jobs. Even this past month at 142,000, it was a little bit below expectations. Other months it's a little bit above expectations and it's basically averaging out. One of the things we find most encouraging is that unemployment rate came down to 6.6 percent. It keeps coming down. If you look at forecasts just a couple of months ago, people thought it would take us another year to get to where we are now in the unemployment rate.”

 

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