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The 11.7 million Americans searching for work got discouraging news Friday morning when the Labor Department said employers created only 88,000 jobs in March. The weak job growth comes at the same time benefits for the long-term unemployed are shrinking.

The smaller-than-expected increase in payrolls was a big disappointment, coming after a long stretch of much better results. Over the past year, employment growth has averaged 169,000 jobs a month.

April 5, 2013

This week, optimists had no trouble finding fresh evidence to suggest that the housing market is recovering.

On Thursday, they learned from a Realtors' report that existing home sales hit the highest level in more than 3 years. And earlier this week, a Commerce Department report showed homebuilding permits have been rising at the quickest pace since June 2008.

But not everyone is convinced that the sector's momentum has staying power. Skeptics point to reasons why the housing sector might falter, just as it has several times over the past six years.

If the optimists and pessimists had to face off in front of a judge, these are the exhibits they might enter as evidence:

The Optimists' Case

Your honor, don't be blinded by years of bad news. Look at these recent statistics:

— Home prices rose by more than 7 percent last year, according to the widely respected S&P/Case-Shiller Index.

— Builders have been hiring again, adding workers at a pace of 30,000 a month over the past five months.

— The Federal Reserve plans to hold interest rates at historically low levels for a long time, making homes more affordable.

— The number of underwater borrowers, i.e., those whose mortgages exceed the value of their homes, fell by almost 4 million last year to 7 million, according to JPMorgan Securities.

Economy

For Some Ready To Buy, A Good Home Is Hard To Find

Few things indicate a president no longer needs to worry about re-election more than his willingness to ignite an intraparty firestorm.

President Obama's decision to include in the budget proposal he's scheduled to unveil Wednesday a less generous way to calculate Social Security cost-of-living increases may be the clearest sign yet that his name will not again be on a presidential ballot.

Obama made a proposal during a 2011 budget showdown to cut Social Security and Medicare — but that was during a face-off with Republicans over whether they'd even agree to raise the debt ceiling. And he didn't provide many details on the cuts.

That pressure-packed moment, which ultimately led to a downgrade in the nation's credit rating, was the impetus for that offer of a "grand bargain" compromise.

Obama may not have the same pressure as then to offer up cuts to the nation's premiere social safety net programs. But he has.

It's the kind of in-your-face move that had he proposed it during his first term, Obama might have demoralized and angered enough Democrats to have hurt his re-election chances. It might even have spurred a primary challenge.

Now safely in a second term he won by promising a "balanced approach" to deficit reduction of tax increases and spending cuts, Obama is providing more details.

The decision to go on record as favoring the less generous chained-CPI method for calculating Social Security benefit increases echoes negotiations to avert the fiscal cliff at the end of 2012. At that time, Obama reportedly offered House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, a similar deal: Reduce Social Security spending from a revised method of calculating cost-of-living increases.

The so-called chained CPI approach works on the assumption that when prices rise on certain products and services, consumers respond by choosing less pricey substitutes. The bottom line is that such an approach would often lead to lower cost-of-living increases for those receiving Social Security benefits.

White House officials who gave journalists a preview of Obama's fiscal priorities said the fiscal 2014 budget proposal incorporates chained CPI and proposes that wealthier beneficiaries pay more of their Medicare costs.

His budget, which is really little more than a statement of his fiscal vision — and now takes its place alongside competing versions from Senate Democrats and House Republicans — puts Obama at odds with many of his political supporters, whose statements were filled with their sense of betrayal.

From the liberal group MoveOn.org's Executive Director Anna Galland:

"Millions of MoveOn members did not work night and day to put President Obama into office so that he could propose policies that would hurt some of our most vulnerable people. Just as we fought and defeated President Bush's plan to privatize Social Security, we will mobilize and stop this attempt to diminish the vital guarantee of Social Security."

Automatic federal budget cuts that kicked in March 1 have had little initial impact in many parts of the government. For a few programs, however, the effect has been real and painful, as the government begins cutting $85 billion from its spending through the end of September.

Many of the earliest signs of the cuts are being seen on the local level, in state programs like education that rely in part on federal dollars.

By law, furloughs for most federal employees could not begin before April, so it's still early in the process. President Obama is taking a 5 percent pay cut, voluntarily returning $20,000 of his $400,000 annual salary to the U.S. Treasury in solidarity with furloughed federal workers. New Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and a top deputy are taking cuts as well.

Congress stepped in to ease the pain a bit for the Defense Department, but its looming cuts remain deep.

A half-dozen NPR reporters spoke to Morning Edition about what they're seeing so far in the areas they cover. Here's a look at some things we do know, a month into sequestration: