This morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy added 162,000 jobs in March.  While positive job growth is welcome news, this still leaves the Administration 6.7 million short of its promise that its stimulus bill would create 3.7 million jobs by the end of 2010.  During the rest of this year, the economy will need to add more than 750,000 jobs per month — almost five times the pace of the job growth in March — to reach that target.  Further, that target may be even harder to reach than it would appear at first glance, as 48,000 of the jobs added in March were temporary Census jobs that will disappear in a matter of weeks. 

Source: January 2009 Romer/Bernstein report and Ways and Means Republican Staff calculations based on Department of Labor data. 

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