07/05/2011
Job numbers give Obama’s good week a mixed ending
The data suggested the economic recovery would regain speed this quarter after stumbling in the first three months of the year
As the US employment report appeared on Friday;The report contained good news for Obama — private employers stepped up hiring. April saw an additional 244,000 nonfarm jobs, more than in any of the previous 11 months.
But it also contained bad news — unemployment rose too. The survey of households showed a sharp decline in employment and only a modest rise in the labor force. The monthly jobless rate rose to 9.0 percent, up from 8.8 percent in March.
President Barack Obama said on Friday that high gasoline prices are sapping the spending power of Americans, as he tried to limit political fallout by linking it to public hostility toward oil companies.
"We've got high gas prices that have been eating away at your paychecks and that is a headwind that we've got to confront," Obama told auto plant workers in remarks to promote his policies to wean Americans from dependency on foreign oil.
Public anger over rising costs at the pump has put pressure on Obama to look for ways to provide quick relief for consumers as he seeks re-election in 2012.
Gasoline prices have jumped by more than $1 a gallon (3.8 liters) over the past year. Retail prices averaged nearly $4 a gallon on Friday, according to the motorist group AAA.
In a bid to deflect voters' anger, Obama has called for an end to tax breaks for oil and gas companies, opened a probe of market speculators and urged world producers to raise output.
Analysts say such measures were unlikely to have much impact. But it touched a popular nerve on Friday.
Global oil prices have surged in recent months on unrest in the Middle East and growing global demand for energy, but they fell steeply on Thursday to under $100 per barrel. The White House says the drop in prices ought be passed along to U.S. consumers in the form of lower gasoline price.
White House press secretary Jay Carney agreed, saying the administration will "make sure that we don't have a what I've heard described as a 'rockets-and-parachutes phenomenon,' where prices at the pump rocket up when oil prices rocket up, and yet they come down in a parachute fashion when oil prices go down."
