While the economy's important numbers hold steady, the politically favored set just improved:
U.S. employers added 274,000 workers in April, more than economists expected, suggesting that higher costs and first-quarter slowdown haven't shaken companies' confidence in economic growth. The increase follows a revised gain of 146,000 jobs in March, the Labor Department said today in Washington. All told, the economy added 93,000 more jobs in February and March than the government previously reported. The jobless rate held at 5.2 percent.
Including April and March, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has recorded in its monthly non-farm payroll reports over 3.4 million jobs created since President Bush signed the Jobs & Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003; tax cuts that exceeded predictions from the President's Council of Economic Advisers to have added at least 1.4 million jobs by the end of 2004 by over thirty percent. And as Larry Kudlow explains today, the market windfall from lower taxes has produced tax receipts aplenty — just as it did after the first year of tax reform.