The best jobs report in three years

By Ezra Klein

Is the February jobs report good? Compared with anything we’ve seen in the past three years -- including the numbers last spring, where were puffed up by temporary census hires -- it’s great. We created 192,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate fell below the psychologically important 9 percent mark. This is the sort of jobs report that could persuade businesses to start hiring and investing for real, as the only thing worse than getting into a recovering economy too early is getting into a recovering economy too late, and they’d be well served investing ahead of it rather than trying to play catch-up.

But there are some dark clouds. The jobs report could’ve been better. If not for the 30,000 jobs the public sector lost, we’d have created 222,000 jobs. So it’s worth worrying that the House GOP is pushing a spending bill that economist Mark Zandi says will cost 700,000 jobs and Ben Bernanke says will cost “a couple hundred thousand” jobs. Zandi’s estimate is high enough to wipe out this jobs report and a few more like it.

The most important thing for not only the economy, but also the long-term deficit, is that we get unemployment down, and fast. When businesses begin hiring again, that’ll mean more revenue rushing into state and federal coffers, it’ll mean gains in the stock market, it’ll mean lower social spending through programs like Medicaid and unemployment insurance. Sharp spending cuts may save us some money, but that doesn’t mean they’re a good deal, at least right now. What we need at the moment is more jobs reports like this one -- businesses need to be convinced that this is a recovery, not merely a good month. Anything that might get in the way should wait until we’ve had a few of them in a row.