Note to John Kerry: It's the Economy, Stupid!

Jobs Surge in April

U.S. job growth continued at a rapid pace in April, as 288,000 new jobs were created and the unemployment rate fell to 5.6 percent, the Labor Department estimated Friday.

The report was much stronger than expected.

Economists surveyed by CBS MarketWatch expected 172,000 new jobs and a jobless rate of 5.7 percent. See Economic Calendar.

The bond market sold off, driving the yield on the 10-year note to 4.76 percent, the highest since the summer of 2002. Stock futures were undecided about the figures, welcoming the strong growth, but fearing higher interest rates. See Indications.

March's payroll gains were revised higher from 308,000 to 337,000. Job growth, up eight months in a row, has averaged 217,000 a month so far in 2004. Since August, payrolls are up 1.1 million.

The Times of course is a little less enthusistic: Growth of Jobs Reinforces Hopes of Sustained Turnaround

Of course the focus is on the unpredictable future that we can only hope gets better, as opposed to looking at the statistics of eight straight months of job growth and two years of GDP growth.

But just in case you thought George Bush was handling the economy well, they chime in (via AP) with this irrelevant statistic:

Bush is on track to be the first president since the Great Depression to have lost jobs under his watch. But the spate of hiring gains in recent months have shrank those losses to about 1.5 million.

Since "his watch" loosely defined includes the first year of his term under Clinton's budget and 9/11, I'm not sure how this is relevant. But even so notice how they use the term "Great Depression" instead of mentioning the President of the time or the year. Does that mean we're in bad a shape now as during the Great Depression? Sorry, I hadn't noticed.