Economic Update and Other Business

The New York Times tells us that we're looking at a strong jobs report in the U.S.

The United States economy added far more jobs than expected in April as the recovery continued to pick up steam.

The Department of Labor said Friday that 244,000 jobs were added last month after a gain of a revised 221,000 in March. The unemployment rate rose to 9 percent in April from 8.8 percent in March.

However, as we Dr. Heidi Shierholz told us at #NAPC11, there's still a very long way to go. (Find her PowerPoint here; find her latest video from the Economic Policy Institute here.)

Speaking of video, if you haven't already, take the time to watch some of our video vignettes from the 2011 NAPC Conference. You can also find a some interviews, a most of the conference presentations on the NAPC Forward YouTube page.

I'd love to keep that thing updated between now and the next conference. If you have some good video to upload, let me know and we'll work on it together.