Better jobs data a mixed blessing for Obama

1:54 AM better, blessing, mixed, Obama No Comments

The United States 200,000 jobs in December, but it added there are still 6 million fewer jobs than in December 2007. NBC Tom Costello reports.

By John W. Schoen, senior producer

President Barack Obama claim that help his economic policies Americans have brought back in work showed a shot in the arm Friday when Government unemployment rate dropped data of the country at the lowest level in three years.

"We have made real progress," said Obama Friday after the latest employment report was released. "Now is not the time to stop."

The Government reported on Friday that the labour market in December, to a healthy clip expands pushing the unemployment rate to 8.5 percent. The news followed a series of reports on a broad revival of economic growth.

Private employers 200,000 workers added last month, the Labor Department said. It was the biggest gain in three months and a much stronger results, win the 150,000 economists expected had. Unemployment rate in November was seen by a notch to 8.7 percent, easing widespread fears that the sharp decline in October a month was by accident.

Gaining momentum with the presidential campaign has the data the White House a welcome reprieve of grim economic data that has dogged his presidency. What must be Obama in the election year for the good news to place continue the front or even accelerate.

"When we took over the Government, we lose 800,000 jobs haemorrhage were jobs, with major losses only of depression," said Minister of labour Hilda Solis. "Now see we a better trajectory where we are in the right direction." "I believe that the public supports the types of solutions, which the President speaks, but we must still do more."

Republicans wasted no time to play down the impact of the economic policies of the President.

"I can not give Washington, Congress or the Administration, in a credit whatsoever," said Senator Bob Corker, R-Tennessee "we simply did not have things that need to be done." This (improvement comes from) the private sector and its resistance despite the fact have we had very bad behavior of Washington. "

Vote: Do you see signs of improvement in the labour market?

It is also clear that will continue to improve the employment data for the next 10 months. The most economic forecasters see economic growth slow down in 2012. The Outlook is clouded by the ongoing debt crisis in Europe, expected to slip into a recession, even if a financial disaster can be averted.

The decline of which heading may unemployment rate blocked, even if the US economy continue to heal. The rate is partly as a result of a decrease in the official size of the workforce decreased. So-called unemployed workers find "discouraged" you better chances of getting, we start counting again and then get to reverse back in the workforce, which slow decrease in the unemployment rate or price as he.

When that happens, Friday could long since forgotten optimistic messages from election day.

"If I were sitting in the White House, I would go for the unemployment rate to bump a bit now rather as spring or summer when people come back in the workforce", economic strategist said Matt McDonald, a Republican.

The Obama administration to kick off report prod Congress continue to guidelines, the expansion of last year's salary and payroll tax cuts and unemployment insurance benefits include. After deadlock for weeks, Congress voted in December continues to these guidelines only for two months.

"It is important that we the economic policy, which continue, helping us to dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the recession, 2007 began to the end of the year," said White House Chief Econmist Alan Krueger.

Republican opponents argue, that the costs of these policies and the impact on the deficit any suggestion compensate federal budget, which increases spending is the economy. Even Obama note supporters, that the White House can do it not much more is to create growth and jobs.

"Around in the basement, I was looking for", Austan Goolsbee, former Chief Economist of Obama said. "There are no big lever down there, you can flip and everything goes."

Although the jobs move numbers in the right direction, most voters think the country on the wrong track, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal, is the beginning of December. Only 22 percent believe taken the county located in the right direction; about 69 percent said pollsters that the United States in the wrong direction is headed.

"People still feel how labour market is hurting and they are right," said Stanford economist Ed Lazear, was Chief Economist for George W. Bush. "Even if this a very different labour market as we things better whenever 8.5 percent unemployment, you saw was the unemployment rate of 4.4 percent in 2007." "It's no wonder people so still fight the feeling like the labour market is, even if the move in the right direction."

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Cuba's new entrepreneurs to see mixed results

1:15 AM Cubas, entrepreneurs, mixed, results No Comments

HAVANA?? There was no colorful bunting to mark the grand opening, and no way to advertise in the local press. There was not even money to hand out fliers in this decaying Havana neighborhood of potholed streets and crumbling one-story homes.

So when the freshly-painted front window of the tiny pizzeria swung open on the most important afternoon in Julio Cesar Hidalgo's life, nobody noticed at first.

Hidalgo and his girlfriend Gisselle de la Noval waited for half an hour, then another, and another. Finally, 92-year-old Estrella Soto shuffled up to the takeout counter and ordered a medium pizza with onion toppings.

"I love it," she declared, and Hidalgo and de la Noval have barely sat down since.

They sold seven more pizzas in the next 15 minutes, and a total of 30 on their March 8 opening day. The following Saturday they had their best afternoon yet, churning out 60 pies from a used gas oven that looks too narrow even for a small family's needs.

It has been six months since President Raul Castro opened this tightly-controlled communist country to a smattering of free-market capitalism, in the most significant change to its economy in decades.

By March 8, entrepreneurs had taken out more than 171,000 business licenses, according to state-run media, more than two-thirds of the 250,000 goal for all of 2011.

As Cuba's new business class journeys cautiously forth, some, are enjoying the first fruits of success. Others say the terrain has been rockier than anticipated. Some have already closed the door on their entrepreneurial dreams.

The Associated Press began following the fortunes of a group of would-be small business owners in December. Four months later, their experiences seem to reflect the sweep of Cuba's grand fiscal experiment, as well as the sometimes cruel vicissitudes of the free market.

There is Javier Acosta, who is struggling to get customers into his upscale Havana restaurant. And Yusdany Simpson, a young single mother making a modest income selling coffee and sandwiches from her front yard, a humble venture that resembles a child's lemonade stand.

Then there is Danilo Perez, a 21-year-old bookkeeper who got a license to sell pirated DVDs, only to give up bitterly after authorities suddenly quadrupled his taxes.

"Cubans are entrepreneurial people and to the extent they are allowed to work and make some money, they will," said Lorenzo Perez, a former IMF economist and member of the Association of the Study of the Cuban Economy, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C.-based think tank.

But he added the new enterprises face stiff challenges in a country where few have business acumen, raw materials are hard to find, tax rates can be exorbitant and myriad government regulations still restrict basic activities.

"All over the world, the percentage of small businesses that succeed is very small, even in the United States," said Perez. "In Cuba, the difficulties are enormous, because the environment is not very conducive yet to business ... but that doesn't mean it can't be done."

Dozens of restaurants have opened, some of them remarkably chic for an island of 11 million people where it can be hard to find such basics as matching tables and chairs, and an explosion of private apartments have been put on the rental market.

Those who have sought out licenses say the process is fast and straightforward. Fears that government inspectors ? some looking for kickbacks ? would undo the free market drive have not materialized, perhaps because there are not yet enough to check in regularly on the unexpectedly large number of new businesses.

Meanwhile, the government has pushed back indefinitely plans to lay off 500,000 state workers, acknowledging the move was extremely difficult and had to be handled with the utmost delicacy. More details are likely to be announced at a key Communist Party Congress slated to begin April 16,

But it has not all been smooth sailing for the entrepreneurs.

Perez, the DVD seller, threw in the towel two weeks ago. He said when he went to get a license in December, officials told him he needed to pay $2.50 a month to operate a streetside kiosk. But when he went back in March, they told him the rates had gone up to $10.50 a month, with an extra month's taxes in advance.

"There were many people protesting ? some even crying ? because they didn't have the money to pay," said Perez, who is unemployed and getting help from his parents to make ends meet.

Javier Acosta, the owner of a new restaurant in the Playa neighborhood, said he did not make enough in his first month to even cover the monthly tax of $458, and so had to dip into his savings to pay the government and his employees. The next month Acosta did cover his costs, barely, and he is hoping nervously the trend continues.

"There are days when nobody has come, absolutely nobody," Acosta said. "Sometimes I've had one table, or two, but I know how this works .. one must go slowly, little by little, and build a reputation through word of mouth."

Simpson, the single mother, has had more success, albeit with far more modest goals. Before she opened her kiosk in Havana's Vedado neighborhood, she was unemployed and dependent on remittances sent from abroad to raise her 2-year-old son. Now, she makes about $25 a month selling coffee, soft drinks and mayonnaise sandwiches for pennies apiece, a little more than the average Cuban monthly salary.

"This isn't going to make me rich, but I make enough to get by," she said.

Back at Hidalgo's pizza parlor, the strains of business ownership were evident. Hidalgo has spent more than $1,000 to get the pizzeria off the ground, much of it a gift from a cousin in the United States.

Now that it is open, he spends hours standing up each day next to the hot oven, and hours more each week lugging sacks of flour and large cans of tomato sauce back on his bicycle. He has been able to find all the ingredients he needs in official shops, a sign, he says, that the government is making good on promises to increase access to raw materials.

Hidalgo said he has had no time to contemplate success because he falls asleep at the end of each long day before his head hits the pillow.

He said his lowest moment came when a housing inspector turned up to fine him because he did not have a permit for carving out the pizzeria at the front of his house.

At first, it looked like he would have to pay the equivalent of $75, but in the end he was told the fine would be forgiven if he got an architect to retroactively draw up plans for the building work ? something that will cost him just $4.

Hidalgo said no inspectors have been by to check his books or demand copies of his receipts, a major change from his experience opening another pizzeria with his cousin in the 1990s. Then, inspectors paid them weekly visits, and drove the venture out of business when they discovered the pair was buying ingredients on the black market.

This time around, Hidalgo had planned to take a leave of absence from his $11-a-month job at a state-owned bakery, but he quickly realized his heart was in his new venture and quit outright.

He said there are still slow days, particularly at the end of the month when many people run short of cash, but he reckoned he averages selling 20 pies a day. On a good afternoon, he can easily makes more than in an entire month at his old job, though profits are split with de la Noval and Hidalgo's aunt, the owner of the house.

Hidalgo charges from 50 cents for a small cheese pizza to $3 for a family sized pie piled high with toppings, a small fortune on an island where the average salary is just $20 a month.

Some Cuban economists have warned that the fiscal changes might not work in part because islanders won't have enough spending money to support the new ventures. But many Cubans receive money from abroad, and almost everyone makes cash on the side, either stealing items from their government workplace or doing odd jobs.

When asked where his clients get the cash for his pizzas, Hidalgo smiled.

"There are people who live off their salary or pension, but there's always money that comes in in other ways," he said, pulling another pie out of the oven and wiping the sweat from his brow. "If it were only for the salaries, people would be living on the street in loincloths."

Hidalgo and his girlfriend say the business has changed their outlook on the country.

A year ago, both were looking to emigrate: her through a quickie marriage to a Cuban-American, him to live in Atlanta with the cousin who was once his business partner.

"We took a risk, we believed in the country and the changes they are making," said de la Noval. "We are hoping that things are only going to get better."

Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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