The stagnant jobs-growth picture will give voters a whole new question to consider when it comes to candidates hoping to occupy the White House in 2016.
"As I see it, 2016 will revolve around voters answering, 'Will you be better off eight years from now?' rather than 'Are you better off than eight years ago?'" writes the
American Enterprise Institute's James Pethokoukis.
"The streak is over," he notes. "After twelve consecutive months of 200,000-plus jobs gains — the longest run since 1994 — the U.S. economy added just 126,000 jobs in March, according to the Labor Department. That's about half what Wall Street was looking for."
He notes that so far this year, monthly job gains have averaged 197,000, compared with 324,000 for the final three months of last year and 260,000 for all of 2014.
There's "no progress on the employment rate," he writes. "And same-old, same-old on wages."
It all adds up to trouble for Hillary Clinton, "who could wind up squaring off against a GOP opponent promising – fairly or not – an end to the desultory growth rates of the Obama years,"
Politico's Ben White writes.
Voters could be unforgiving.
"Polling regularly shows that American attitudes toward the occupant of the White House are tied directly to the performance of the economy, no matter whether an opposition party in Congress may be making things more difficult," White notes.
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