The jobless rate rose to 8.1 percent in February as employers reduced payrolls by 651,000, the Labor Department said yesterday in Washington. Losses have now exceeded 600,000 for three straight months, the first time that’s happened since collection of the data began in 1939.
Unemployment has already reached the average rate the White House projected for the whole year. The administration needs to keep its focus on repairing the banking system and implementing the stimulus rather than get diverted by other goals such as healthcare changes, said John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics LLC in New York.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a2sWlnEIj58U&refer=news
I'd say it puts pressure on the Republicans and conservative Democrats to wake up, smell the coffee, and pass a second, much larger stimulus bill.
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