Construction Numbers News Today

Energy. those have all contradicted to a really, really strong economy. by the way, when you think about this, we have not only the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. we have the lowest inflation rate in 50 years. you combine those two things thats a very healthy economy. i do want to put a little bit of asterisk on this, guys. i am a little worried about the manufacturing and industrial sector of the economy. that has slowed down. we lost 2,000 manufacturing jobs in the last report. construc...

Generally speaking job growth has been very strong. >> it is and that is a good number. this number had a lot of noise in it, last month we had a government shut down but the workers were counted as employed even though they werent getting paid because congress said they would pay them. so we were also double counting a little bit. february also even though it was seasonally adjusted had unseasonably bad weather. >> so construction numbers at the bottom, there was a loss in construction jobs. >>...

Hypocritical on this? >> no not on hypocritical. i dont think he viewed that as robust a recovery as should have been. >> how does that not chip away though at his credibility. his referring to basically the same number os it w numbers in the past that he laughed off, and now taking credit for it. >> i think he is seeing the trending numbers, that were not there, manufacturing, construction numbers are the highest we have seen for a decade. they were in these numbers not obama numbers, so i thin...

4.7%, thats considered full employment. >> melissa: do we read from the construction numbers in terms of optimism or -- >> it was a warmer month, so they are gearing for projects. i think it also has to do with expectations of the business community. as this is in general are feeling pretty confident about things. theyre feeling confident about tax cuts, regulations. that is inspiring them to hire and higher and a more aggressive rate. >> melissa: one optimistic sign was wages, 2.8%. that is it ...

Remember? when real estate prices crashed. as an investor, do you want your money in buying bonds that pay 2% interest rate? i like investing in real estate. i think the american housing is going to continue to do very well. i hope so because i own two houses i am trying to sell so i have to get rid of that house. and by the way, if the housing market crashed like it did in 2008-2009 it would cause a recession. but so far the last three months the housing data has been good. new home sales are g...

>> i have put together a few toys in my day. >> there you go. if youre skilled with the welding, any of this stuff -- heres the thing, though. this time, it feels a little bit more like its for real. remember we had that gigantic drop with the great recession. a lot of people who were in construction went on to other different jobs which is one of the reasons weve got this amazing shortage of jobs where that means wages start to go up. >> if youre a carpenter, a roofer, equipment operator, these...

You housing market? thats the flip side. e-mac, explain this one. >> yes, its bad because look, about 11 to 12 million homes are in negative equity. meaning thats 25% of all mortgages out there that are tipping, and theres he a-- basically a big fat inventory of homes set to be defaulting or delinquent. i propose a new green job program, rehab and refurbish dilapidated old homes and thats how air going to get job creation in this country because we have a problem of suburban poverty right now fr...

Job creation trailing the pace of last year through the first six months of the year. steve moore, senior economics writer at "the wall street journal" and joins us now. steve, 80,000 jobs, 0,000 jobs created. where did those jobs come from? >> well, jenna, a pretty lousy report overall. a lot of people expected 100 to 150,000 jobs so were all very disappointed. yes, those jobs created came from, we did see an increase in white-collar hiring. so businesses for, what we call business services, in...

Affected by oil. remodeling we will talk to home depot in how that might be impacted. maybe not directly but we look at the housing market, what do we see. >> i dont see oil being a big factor when it comes to housing. new construction numbers were actually down in february and that is what you see in the headlines but that is not the full picture. in january unit sales 4.63 million and in february they were 4.59 million. that is not a huge dip. analysts also are not telling you that dip is base...

right now it is down by 34 points. go live to the new york stock exchange in just a few minutes. 30 years, 30 million funerals. now there is new hope. it is world aids day. everyone from u.s. presidents to rock super stars, they are talking about the ongoing fight to end this epidemic. >> make no mistake, we are going to win this fight. the fights not over, not by a long shot. the rate of new infections may be going down elsewhere, but its not going down here in america. the infectio...