- Last Friday, the Labor Department informed the nation that the U.S. economy added 162,000 jobs in March – the biggest gain in three years.

That’s goods news, of course…but not as good as it might appear. For one thing, newly hired Census workers contributed about 30% of the gain. These folks will be unemployed by summer. For another thing, the “underemployment rate” – which includes part-timer workers and people who want work but have given up looking – increased to 16.9 percent from 16.8 percent. Meanwhile, the number of workers who have been unemployed for 27 weeks or more rose to a record 44.1 percent of all jobless.