ballistic missile, most short range but one was an intermediate range ballistic missile that overflew japan. the u.s. will not be deterred in its exercises, the firing and testing of long-range missiles as long as trilaterals with the u.s. and japan that was conducted yesterday and will continue today. the u.s. will not be deterred from the region even as the u.s. warns north korea may be getting ready for another nuclear test. it s possible they re ready to go since may. if kim jong un carried out the test, it would be the seventh. has there been any escalation from russia that would have prompted him to raise that specter? reporter: this is a question we constantly ask at the pentagon. has the u.s. administration seen any indication that russia is prepared to use a nuclear weapon and has there been any reason for the u.s. to change the nuclear posture? in both cases there the answer remains no. but what s concerning is the rhetoric from the kremlin, from medvedev and pu
50-year low, near what economists consider full employment, which is why i pointed out the labor force participation number, too. a lot of people have left the job search because of the pandemic, trouble finding child care and you want to see that number start to move higher. i think there are just so many different cross currents at play here. we like to look at these trend, the trend for the unemployment rate is still very, very low and the trend for job creation is still pretty good. before the pandemic, john, you and i would sit here on these job mornings and if i said 263,000 we would have been screaming from the rooftops. a red hot jobs market. but everything has changed and everything is in the context of inflation and the fed s quest to cool inflation. very quickly, mark, the question people want the answer to is recession. is it coming or not? are we in it? does this increase or decrease the chances of that? is that a knowable thing in.
if you average it out, we had a great january, a really terrible february in part because of weather. if you average it out across three months, that s 186,000 a month. that is actually pretty good. anything that is between about 130 to 150 right now economists would say we are at the tail end of a recovery cycle. it is the 101st month of job growth. we are still growing and breaking records on that front. it makes me wonder when you are taking all of this into account, what is the broader picture that you are watching? the thing that i watch most closely is the labor force participation number. at the height it was 67%. that s what you want to see starting to tick up. you need slower steadier gains for that to happen. i will say the layman s version of what labor force participation is. it s the percentage of people who are looking for work who are
traps. tucker: it s nobody business what kind of deck you build by the way. finally, can we just agree to ignore the unemployment number and go henceforth with the labor force participation number? i mean, it s a much more meaningful measure, is it not? i think we need to look at a variety of numbers. like your doctor when he checks your blood and looks at different numbers. the percentage of adults that have a job. from that a percentage of adults that have a full-time job. if we were grading this president on those numbers, why i hate to tell you, this but he would be out of the program in maryland. he would get an e and encouraged to go to the university in baltimore that trains pastry chefs. tucker: community college. peter morici thanks for joining us. take care. tucker: great video online but this one leaves you speechless. this man confesses to murder. my name is matthew cordle and on june 22nd, 2013, i hit and killed