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By Dale McFeatters
At the end of the week there was good economic news, good in the sense of "not as bad as it could have been." Still, there's hope.
For the fourth straight month, the economy lost jobs, but instead of the expected 75,000, the loss was only -- "only" being a relative term -- 21,000. Considering that 81,000 jobs disappeared in March, that has to be considered an improvement of sorts.
Hardest hit were -- no surprise -- construction and manufacturing, but other sectors -- health care, education, professional services, government -- actually gained jobs, and as a result the unemployment rate fell from 5.1 percent to 5 percent. If you're unemployed, this will come as no consolation but 5 percent is actually a pretty good number.
Consumer spending rose from March to April by 0.4 percent, not much but it shows the all-important consumer still has some vital signs. Average hourly earnings rose to $17.88, up 0.1 percent in April and up 3.4 percent from a year earlier. Of course, for most people that modest gain was pretty much wiped out by increases in the price of food and gasoline but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.
A private index of factory activity remained unchanged from March to April, which was not good but could have been worse. And the U.S. Commerce department reported that factory orders rose by 1.4 percent in April following two months of decline. Not exactly a reason to hold a parade, but that too is better than expected.
These numbers are mildly reassuring because they come as the government is about out of weapons to refire the economy. Taxpayers are now receiving their rebates from that $168 billion economic stimulus bill and while there's some sentiment in Congress for enacting another, that doesn't seem likely to happen. At week's end, the Federal Reserve announced it would pump $150 billion into the banking system in May, up from $100 billion last month, but the Fed also signaled that it is close to the end of the road on rate cuts.
The U.S. economy is showing surprising resilience in weathering the collapse of the housing boom, the oil price shocks and the turmoil in the credit markets. When we come out of whatever we're in -- recessions aren't officially declared until after they're over -- maybe we'll be able to say it was "not as bad as it could have been."
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service)
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