Republicans are pinning the blame on President Barack Obama after the monthly jobs report showed that gains fell significantly in March, coming in below the expectations of most forecasters and breaking a yearlong streak of job creation.
The economy added just 126,000 net new jobs in March, and January and February's job gains were revised downward by 69,000 jobs. The unemployment rate held steady at 5.5 percent.
House Speaker John Boehner issued a statement saying that the president has obstructed Republican efforts to create jobs, most recently vetoing a measure that would protect the rights of small businesses and workers.
He added in a tweet:
The Republican National Committee issued its own response, blaming the president for the lackluster figures.
"This report clearly shows that President Obama's efforts have not done enough to grow our economy and create jobs fast enough. It's very disappointing to see that job creation slowed down in March,"
Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement.
"There are still millions of Americans who are stuck in part-time positions because of job-killing legislation like Obamacare. Hundreds of thousands of potential workers have become discouraged with the job market entirely and are no longer looking for employment at all," he added. "Republicans in Congress know that their efforts to restore the economy have only just begun, and they will continue to send job-creating bills to the president's desk."
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise wrote in a tweet:
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, a likely 2016 presidential contender, also weighed in on Twitter:
The White House acknowledged that the figures marked a downward turn in the trend but blamed bad weather and the global economic slowdown as the factors driving the data.
"The President has been clear that he will continue to push for policies including investments in infrastructure and relief from the sequester that would help ensure the strong underlying longer-term trends persist,"
the White House said in a statement.
Obama also acknowledged the disappointing figures directly saying, "We've got to be relentless in our work to grow the economy and create jobs,"
Fox Business reported.
One analyst said that the figures will become leverage for those seeking to raise the debt limit.
"There will have to be an extraction of concessions of some sort from the president to Republicans to get the debt limit raised," Jason Rosenstock, a Washington analyst at Thorn Run Partners,
told Politico.
While the jobless rate held at 5.5 percent, the lowest level since May 2008, the March data had other worrisome signs: hours worked fell, unemployment among all adult men and among minorities rose, and the participation rate in the jobs market fell.
Hiring in the huge service sector slowed but still was a firm 142,000 new positions.
But total jobs in government and in the goods-producing industries declined, with a notable net loss of 11,000 jobs in the mining sector as oil industry layoffs mount with the plunge in crude prices.
Economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the Congressional Budget Office, called the report "awful."
"The headwinds of cold weather, higher dollar, and low oil prices are all good excuses for a bad month. But once again the economy has failed to shift to an anticipated higher gear -- an ominous development," he said.
Wage growth in March remained weak. Average hourly wages rose 7 cents to $24.86 an hour. That marked a year-over-year pay increase of just 2.1 percent. But because average hours worked fell in March for the first time in 15 months, Americans actually earned less on average than they did in February. Tepid pay increases have been a drag on the economy since the Great Recession ended nearly six years ago.
Many Americans remain out of the labor force, partly because many baby boomers are reaching retirement age. The percentage of Americans who are either working or looking for work fell in March to 62.7 percent, tying the lowest such rate since 1978.
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