The number of U.S. jobs increased by 192, 000 in February, with the unemployment rate declining to 8.9 percent from 9 percent in February , according to new Bureau of Labor Statistics data out this morning.

Check this out. ABC World News this week is spotlighting products that are ” Made in America .” 

Recognizing the connection between a strong industrial base and a vibrant economy, the feature on American-made products asks, “how we can bring jobs back to the U.S.?”

This a cross-post from TPM  by Dean Baker, economist and co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research .

We now have even more evidence that inept policies from Washington are causing enormous suffering across the country. It is not quite the line that the right-wingers are pushing. The new evidence is that the stimulus worked and was, in fact, more effective than had been predicted.

“No person should have to face the loss of their rights or the loss of their jobs,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said today on NBC’s Meet the Press . His remarks came in response to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) threat to begin laying off public employees if he doesn’t get his way on a sham budget bill that would strip away collective bargaining rights.

Assaults on public employees’ right to bargain for a better life hurt all working people. But blacks are being hit especially hard. Black unemployment was 15.7 percent in January, compared with a national rate of 9 percent. Calls to slash the freedom of public employees could hit black job seekers especially hard because so many blacks are public employees. 

The Air Force has given a major boost to U.S. job creation by awarding a $35 billion contract to build the next generation of air refueling tankers to Boeing Co. The announcement was made at the Pentagon late this afternoon after the financial markets closed.

More than a million private-sector jobs were added to the U.S. economy during the past 12 months, but they were mainly mid- and lower-wage jobs, a new report from the National Employment Law Project ( NELP ) finds.

As if finding a job isn’t hard enough, unemployed workers now face the added hurdle of being discriminated against because they don’t have a job. Speaking today before the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Christine Owens, executive director of the National Employment Law Project ( NELP ),  said that practices barring the unemployed from job availabilities have been growing around the country—and place a disproportionate burden on older workers, African Americans and other workers facing high levels of long-term unemployment.

The AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce don’t agree on very much. But today, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka and Chamber President Thomas Donohue told a Senate committee that labor and business agree on the vital need to invest in the nation’s transportation infrastructure to create jobs and boost the economy.

The nation’s No. 1 priority is  getting the nation’s job-creation engine running again. But House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his gang instead have unveiled a budget plan that slams working families and is a “naked payback” to Wall Street CEOs, says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka.