Positive Economic News This Week

After two years of mostly dire economic news, three positive economic items released this week almost seems like an embarrassment of riches.
On Tuesday, the Conference Board announced that consumer confidence rebounded from a surprising dip in February. March’s index figure was 52.5, up from 46.4 in February. Consumer confidence had been increasing steadily between October 2009 and January 2010 before February’s drop.
Thursday’s bit of good news was a positive manufacturing report. The Institute for Supply Management’s manufacturing index rose for the eighth straight month in February. This index is based on a survey of purchasing managers and is seen as a reliable measure of manufacturers’ confidence in the economy.
And today, the Labor Department announced that the national economy added 162,000 jobs in March, the largest increase in three years. It is worth noting that an estimated 48,000 of those jobs are temporary Census jobs; still, the other 100,000-plus jobs will mark an end to the continuous job losses we experienced in 2008 and 2009. These new jobs did not lower the unemployment rate. It stands at 9.7 percent for the third straight month.
We will get updated employment data for the Kansas City area next week, on April 7, when February’s local data is released. March’s data will be released on April 28.