The U.S. economy generated just 88,000 jobs last month, the smallest gain in 10 months, adding to fresh evidence that the pace of hiring has slowed, the Wall Street Journal reports.

The unemployment rate fell to 7.6% because of an unanticipated high number of people dropping out of the job market.

First Read: “Don’t be surprised if this lower-than-expected number puts pressure on Congress to alleviate the sequester cuts.”

The Week: Headed for a slowdown?

Micah Cohen notes that President Obama’s advantage over Congressional Republicans on economic issues “has all but vanished. Public approval of his handling of the economy has slipped, according to polls, and surveys now show that a roughly equal number of Americans favor Mr. Obama as favor Congressional Republicans on economic matters.”

“It is not clear what is causing the decline, but it doesn’t seem to be the actual economy. There are increasing signs that the recovery is accelerating. Recent reports on jobs and housing have been unexpectedly strong. And all the while, the stock market has been bullish.”

Wonk Wire: Finally, signs of a solid economic recovery.

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke admits he’s “spoken to the president a bit” about whether he would serve another term but says he feels “no personal responsibility to stay at the helm until the Fed winds down
its unprecedented policies to stimulate the economy,” Bloomberg reports.

Bernanke’s term ends in January 2014.

Wonk Wire: Why Bernanke needs to serve a third term.

A new Gallup poll
finds that public support for new federal spending to create jobs is, as Greg Sargent puts it,
“simply overwhelming.”

Key findings: 72% support federal spending “to put people to work on urgent infrastructure
repairs” and
72% support a “federal jobs creation law that would spend
government money for a program designed to create more than 1 million
new jobs.”

Jill Lawrence says President Obama squandered an opportunity in his ABC News interview because he “talked almost entirely in the cerebral, inside-Washington policy and strategy terms befitting two cerebral, inside-Washington strategists and policy wonks. In other words, Obama talked to Stephanopoulos instead of his audience.”

“Analogies and connections and details were missing. The human impact was missing. Even talking points seemed to be missing. I’d also take issue with Obama’s downbeat assessment of whether a grand fiscal bargain is achievable. Don’t we need a little presidential optimism and encouragement at this point? Where’s that yes-we-can spirit?”

The Wall Street Journal estimates the unemployment rate would be just 7.1% without government job cuts over the last three years.

“Federal, state and local governments have shed nearly 750,000 jobs since June 2009… No other sector comes close to those job losses over the same period. Construction is in second worst place, but its 225,000 cuts are less than a third of the government reductions. To be sure, construction and other sectors performed worse during the depths of the recession, but no area has had a worse recovery.”

The latest jobs report shows 236,000 were created last month — significantly more than the consensus forecast.

The unemployment rate dropped to 7.7%, the lowest it’s been since December 2008.

Ramesh Ponnuru: “Today’s Republicans are very good at tending the fire of Ronald Reagan’s memory but not nearly as good at learning from his successes. They slavishly adhere to the economic program that Reagan developed to meet the challenges of the late 1970s and early 1980s, ignoring the fact that he largely overcame those challenges, and now we have new ones. It’s because Republicans have not moved on from that time that Senators Marco Rubio and Rand Paul, in their responses to the State of the Union address last week, offered so few new ideas.”

A new Bloomberg National Poll finds President Obama enters the latest showdown with Congress with his highest job approval in three years and public support for his economic message, while his Republican opponents’ popularity stands at a record low.

Key findings: 55% of Americans approve of Obama’s in office, the strongest support since Sept 2009. Meanwhile, just 35% of the country has a favorable view of the GOP, the lowest since Sept 2009.

In addition, Americans by 43% to 34% say Republicans are more to blame than and Democrats for what’s wrong in Washington.

Ron Fournier:
“White House officials tell me they feel stung by coverage of the
inaugural address. Reporters highlighted the president’s left-leaning
stances on immigration, gun control, climate change and gay and women’s
rights. Obama’s aides argue that he devoted more inaugural address
language to the economy, jobs and the deficit than all other issues
combined. Still, the perception remains that Obama lost focus on the
economy — the top issue in the minds of most voters. So look for an
address Tuesday tilted heavily toward policies pledging action on
joblessness, growing the economy and expanding the middle class, White
House officials said Friday. The other issues will be discussed, aides
said, but there will be no mistaking that Obama’s paramount concern is
the economy.”

Just out for the Kindle: Here’s the Deal by David Leonhardt.

Highly recommended essay by the New York Times columnist which “explains lucidly and with calm authority the mess we are in–and how we can get ourselves out of it.”

Wonk Wire‘s “chart of the day” is especially interesting today.

Charlie Cook: “Immigration and gun control have
dominated the issue agenda for the past few weeks, pushing away, for a
time, the previously dominant worries about fiscal issues and their
impact on the overall health of the U.S. economy. But Wednesday
morning’s news that the economy, as measured by real gross domestic
product, had declined in the fourth quarter of 2012 by one-tenth of a
percentage point–surprising economists who had expected the economy to
grow by 1 percent–brings these issues back to the forefront. In the
third quarter of 2012, real GDP grew by 3.1 percent.”

Wall Street Journal: “The U.S. added 157,000 jobs last month, signaling a slow start to the year, though revisions showed 2012 job growth was stronger than once thought. The unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9%.”

Wonk Wire: How to read this month’s jobs report.

Wall Street Journal: “U.S. economic momentum screeched to a halt in the final months of
2012, as businesses pared back inventories and government spending fell
sharply, while lawmakers struggled to reach a deal on tax increases and
budget cuts. The nation’s gross domestic product shrank for the first time in
three and a half years during the fourth quarter, declining at an annual
rate of 0.1% between October and December.”

“Three women angry over sexism and male domination of the world economy ripped off their shirts and tried to force their way into a gathering of corporate elites in a Swiss resort,” the AP reports.

“Predictably, they failed. The ubiquitous and huge security force policing the World Economic Forum in Davos carried the women away, kicking and screaming.”

First Read compiles some statistics from the start of President Obama’s first term.

“The Dow Jones Industrial average is up 5,550 points since then. The economy is growing (instead of contracting). Consumer confidence has nearly doubled (though it remains below where it was before the Great Recession). And a larger percentage of Americans believe the country is headed in the right direction (but a majority still think it’s on the wrong track).”

“On the other hand, there’s data indicating that the nation isn’t better off than it was four years ago – and that the Great Recession continues to take a toll on families. Median household income (adjusted for inflation) is lower than it was in 2009. And more Americans live below the poverty level than they did four years ago.”

Annie Lowrey: “Consider how different our politics might be today if the economy had not collapsed in 2008 and not been mired in sluggish growth ever since. A ballpark estimate suggests that if the economy were to grow one percentage point more than expected in each year over the next 10, the deficit would shrink by more than $3 trillion. That would be more than enough to set the ratio of our debt to our annual economic output on a comforting downward trajectory. Moreover, it would happen without making cuts to a single program, like Medicare or food stamps, or without raising a single dollar of additional tax revenue. Even a much smaller boost to growth — say one-tenth of a percentage point per year, or even half that — would make Congress and the White House’s burden hundreds of billions of dollars lighter.”