Economy sheds 80,000 jobs

by Frank James Today's very bad jobs report--the economy lost 80,000 jobs in March--is going to make it much harder for certain policymakers (an image of President Bush just came to mind) to keep up appearances that the economy isn't in recession. The job losses, the largest in five years, were greater than many economists expected and it was the third consecutive month of job losses to boot. What's more, the reduced payrolls helped push the unemployment rate to 5.1 percent for March, the hig