this is the cbs evening news with scott pelley. pelley: good evening. you ve been telling us in poll after poll that the economy is the biggest problem facing the country. so we start tonight with new evidence that it s getting better. the number of americans putting in their first claims for unemployment benefits is at a four-year low, 348,000. home construction is up 1.5%. and general motors back from bankruptcy, reported record profits for 2011, $7.6 billion. we have three correspondents covering. first, ben tracy in california, where unemployment still tops 11%. reporter: scott, more than two million people are still out of work here in california but the good news is businesses are hiring. and they re now expected to create half a million new jobs in just the next two years. at this clothing maker in downtown los angeles, johnny quintero is the newest hire. it feels great, yeah. i learn something new every day. reporter: he was brought on in january after being
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couldn t really find anything after that. that s when i decided to move back to arizona. reporter: retail sales are up 5.5% over last year. that s ignited a hiring burst in southern california s apparel industry, the first in a decade, up 6%. that brought johnny quintero back to california. laurel berman hired him and four other workers in the past year. there are so many great, qualified people looking for work that i feel like we get the cream of the crop today. reporter: nearly nine million jobs were lost during the great recession. more than a quarter of working americans have been laid off at least once since 2007. bit butt economist christopher thornberg is optimistic. he expects the unemployment rate to drop another 1% this year. you have layoffs diminishing substantially. incomes are starting to rise again. everything says that the top-level growth in the u.s. is starting to spill down to workers. reporter: the challenge, of k is that 13 million americans ar
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