That fact alone would suggest the need for further government stimulus, but hope for that faded after the president announced that he was uninterested in further stimulus bill until after the election, though he then backtracked and suggested he was open to some action.
Read moreAmerica is a Tale of Fractured Economic Realities and That's Stopping Us From Fixing this Crisis
Given how much economic damage the pandemic continues to cause, it seems astonishing that Washington has been unable to muster any action since the spring.
Read moreWhy the Jobs Report Means Diddly
The monthly ritual known as the jobs report made its appearance last week, followed metronomically by the monthly ritual of commentary and political reaction to the jobs report. It was a good report, as they go, with “ better-than-expected” job creation, more workers returning to look for work (hence a slightly higher unemployment rate of 5.7 percent) and major upward revisions to reported job creation in November and December of 2014.
Read moreReinterpreting Jobs Report
CNBC Contributor Zachary Karabell, weighs on the nature of U.S. jobs growth and higher wages.
Read moreReality Has No Partisan Bias
In the wake of last week’s job report, there has been a flurry of new debate about what precisely is keeping job creation in the United States so anemic.The pivotal issue is whether the challenges facing the job market are cyclical or structural. The cyclical hypothesis is that we are still suffering an employment hangover from the financial crisis and sharp recession of 2008–09, made worse by limp or insufficient government responses.
Read moreMissing Persons Report
The latest edition of the Bureau of Labor Statistics report is out, and it shows that, statistically speaking, the U.S. added 175,000 new jobs in February and its unemployment rate rose slightly to 6.7 percent. The insta-reaction world greeted the report as better news than expected.
Read moreMSNBC - News Nation - Is The New Jobs Report Hopeful?
Newsweek's Zachary Karabell explains whether the country is escaping the gravity at the bottom of unemployment.
Read more