5 Questions About Today’s Jobs Report

The Labor Department will release the March jobs report at 8:30 a.m. In a typical month, the Labor Department’s revisions to the previous two months of data — January and February in this case — are important not to overlook. They will certainly matter on Friday. But I think they’ll matter less than usual. The overarching question will be whether the very recent economic and political turmoil has created new problems in the job market.

Many Americans, in other words, have given up hope of finding work in this most terrible of economies, and survive on a spouse’s salary or savings. And they wait and hope for an upturn. “The unemployment rate may go up, but the bad news will be the good news,” Ms. Shierholz noted. “It will mean people feel better about getting back into the economy.”