wall street is celebrating. ali velshi will join me in a few minutes. president obama is speaking at a fire engine in virginia and is calling for a payroll tax cut due to expire at the end of this month. he also wants to boost federal grants to local governments to hire veterans at first responders. over the past three years, my administration s made it possible to keep responders on the job and now communities that make a prir tea to recruit veterans will be among the first in line when it comes to getting help from the federal government. the jobless rate for recent vets stands much higher at 11%. four of the three gop presidential hopefuls are making last pitches in in nevada. mitt romney holds a commanding lead. newt gingrich and ron paul are stomping away and rick santorum is holding the nonbinding primary on tuesday. forget about what you heard about the susan b. komen cutting support of the planned parenthood foundation. that was yesterday s news. planned par
for kyra phillips. we have a number of stories developing on this busy morning but we begin with your pocketbook. just minutes ago we learned the jobless rate has fallen to 8.3%. that s a pretty billing surprise seeing some economists expected it to tick up. let s get perspective from christine romans. what have you learned about how this number has gone down slightly? you know, the economy grew in january, and it grew jobs. it grew more jobs than anyone really thought. 243,000 jobs were created in january. the jobs growth, fredricka, was pretty widespread. in professional and business services, 70,000 jobs created. leisure, hospitality, health care again. but even manufacturing and health care jobs, those have been two bright spots the past couple of months. health care for maybe the past year or something. one thing that s interesting about these numbers is 243,000 jobs. we ve had a hard time having jobs growth like this and sustaining it. there was also more jobs created
let me give issue perspective. put aside the unemployment rate for a a while because there are lots of reasons why that s not the most effective way to look at this. the most effective way is job growth, the number of jobs lost or added in a given month. let s go back to january of 2011. you can see all through 2011, we gain jobs. off to a strong start and then we started talking about a double dip recession, issues in europe became more serious. our debt crisis became an issue, the debt ceiling debook kell that we had, the downgrade, all that happened in the late summer and companies were hesitant about hiring more people. but starting late summer and into the fall, we ve had strong growth. from october through january, it s been a steady trend upward culminating in january where we added 243,000 job, the vast majority private sector jobs. how does it affect the political landscape? republicans have been using president obama s job creation record against him. and jobs are
really key to who they are. their families have limited expectations of who they can be and they themselves have limited expectations. woodruff: and we get two views on defense secretary leon panetta s statement on ending the u.s. combat mission in afghanistan by the middle of next year. brown: that s all ahead. on tonight s newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: bnsf railway. and the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. brown: the people of egypt faced a new crisis today. a bloodbath involving soccer fans sent fresh fighting surging through the streets of cairo. we begin with a report narrated by jonathan rugman of independent television ne
subject getting new attention in the presidential campaign. brown: from our american graduate series: a photographer documents the lives of high school drop-outs now in juvenile detention. the word expection is really key to who they are. their families have limited expectations of who they can be and they themselves have limited expectations. woodruff: and we get two views on defense secretary leon panetta s statement on ending the u.s. combat mission in afghanistan by the middle of next year. brown: that s all ahead. on tonight s newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: bnsf railway. and the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. brown: