Unemployment Climbs to 7.3%, 204K Jobs Created

Unemployment Climbs to 7.3%, 204K Jobs Created

on Fri, 8 Nov 2013

The Labor Department reports that in the month of October, the American unemployment rate increased to 7.3% and 204,000 jobs were created.

The media and White House had been laying the groundwork to blame a lousy jobs report on the government shutdown, and by extension the GOP, but the 204,000 beat expectations, even though it is still a very weak number. Job creation needs to be somewhere around 150,000 to 175,000 just to keep up with the population growth.

The bad news for the White House is that job creation beating expectations hurts the president's ability to attack the GOP over the shutdown. But the number is still weak and the unemployment rate is headed in the wrong direction.