The nation’s economy added 165,000 new jobs in April while the jobless rate dropped to 7.5% from March's 7.6%, according to  figures released this morning  by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

U.S. lawmakers and policymakers who are pushing extreme austerity measures and spending cuts over job-creating investments as the magic path to economic stability should take a long hard look at what’s happened to the nations of the European Union (EU) that have imposed strict fiscal austerity policies.  Unemployment has soared, according to a new report on the EU labor market from the International Labor Organization ( ILO ).

There are more than 10 million more jobless people in Europe now than at the start of the crisis. There are now more than 26 million Europeans without jobs, with young and low-skilled workers being the hardest hit.

The nation’s economy added just 88,000 new jobs in March while the jobless rate dipped to 7.6% from February’s 7.7%, according to  figures released this morning  by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

While the 88,000 jobs created reflect 36 straight months of positive job growth, during the previous 12 months job growth had averaged about 169,000 a month. The small number of new jobs also shows how important it is that Congress repeals the sequester to stop any additional job loss in the public and private sectors. These across-the-board cuts will cost more than 750,000 jobs this year alone and could derail the economic recovery.

Calling sequestration “just a fancy word for a dumb idea,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka says the 750,000 job-killing, across-the-board budget cuts and other moves toward fiscal austerity will “further weaken the economy and cost jobs” and make even worse “the crisis of mass unemployment. Millions of Americans who want to work cannot find jobs.”

Writing in a special report in The Hill on jobs and the economy, Trumka says:

On some days, it seems like all of official Washington is racing to embrace the most destructive consensus since the Iraq war.

Ten years ago this week, the United States launched the invasion of Iraq. The nation remains divided on the wisdom, strategy and outcome of the war that claimed the lives of 4,488 U.S. service members and left more than 32,000 wounded.  

But there is one certainty—the men and women who honorably fought and served in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade have come home to an economy that works even less for them than it does others. Job loss, stagnant wages and a widening gap between working families and the wealthy and Wall Street are some of these problems.  

While the nation’s economy added 157,000 new jobs in January, the job creation wasn’t enough to prevent the unemployment rate from slightly ticking up from December’s 7.8% to 7.9% last month, according to  figures released this morning  by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).

Here's a look at some of the key battles in the states from the past week.

Who's the Boss?  is a cross-post from  Working America ’s  Dear David  workplace advice column . David knows you deserve to be treated fairly on the job and he’s available to answer your questions, whether it is co-workers making off-handed comments that you  should retire  or you feel like your job's long hours are  causing stress .

Question: 

I was on unemployment insurance (UI) for a long time and finally got hired, but only part time (the employer wanted to avoid paying medical benefits for full-time workers). I continued to file UI low earnings reports, but the employer was very slow to report my earnings. It was unclear who my employer actually was, too. Was it the company I worked for or the corporate HR firm it contracted out to?

—Longing for more, Hawaii

The nation’s economy added 155,000 new jobs in December and the jobless rate was unchanged from November’s adjusted 7.8%, according to  figures released this morning  by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The 155,000 jobs created reflect 34 straight months of positive job growth.

Part of the so-called "fiscal cliff" agreement included extending federal unemployment insurance (UI) for workers who have been jobless for more than 26 weeks.

The National Employment Law Project (NELP) details  five ways extending UI  benefits the economy.