Easter Bells Sound to Bring Jobs for Obama

Obama marches on! After the health care reform vote, this is the perfect time to galvanize the troops. Even so…let’s take a closer look. When things go well over there, it’s often good news for Europe.

After jobs, they’re on the hunt for eggs on the White House lawn.

Obama’s Good Friday has not been an ordeal. Quite the opposite. Is his employment policy starting to bear fruit? The symbolic figure of 200,000 jobs has not yet been reached, but there are nonetheless 162,000 jobs that have just changed the lives of their recipients and, in turn, the American government. What has happened to make this little miracle possible?

It is the first time since the end of 2007 that the country is gaining rather than losing jobs with the exception of November 2009, which remains a mystery. And if we compare the first quarter of 2010 with the first quarter of 2009, it’s heartening. Last year, we were at -750,000 jobs a month for the first three months of the year, and for the same period in 2010: +54,000/month.

Of course, New York wants to know if this positive statistic will have an effect on its index and if the symbolic mark of 11,000 points will be reached. We will have to wait for Monday because the stock exchange is closed on Good Friday.

The statistics experts see two explanations for the upturn. The return to work after the snow storms of February and the 48,000 jobs created by this year’s census. That makes 112,000 new jobs created by the private sector.

In any case, this figure is positive and allows us to put aside until April the insistent question from the entire country and all Republicans: “where are the jobs that the $862 million dollar stimulus was supposed to bring?”

There are a number of things which remain troubling:

1. The unemployment rate remains stuck at 9.7 percent of the population. So no triumph there.

2. The nature and dynamic of new jobs must be analyzed.

3. The impact of this good news on Obama’s popularity and the expected rebound for the Democrats in the midterm elections in November. By way of comparison, during Ronald Reagan’s first term of office, it took him 10 months to get back up to 50 percent popularity in the opinion polls after a significant rise in employment.

Obama is almost there, but only if March’s results are the first in a long series of positive statistics. Still, Happy Easter nonetheless!