Pelosi hails tax breaks for helping to boost job totals

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Friday said improved jobs numbers is evidence that recovery efforts by Congress are working.

"Building on the Recovery Act's tax cuts and investments in American families and small businesses, we are continuing our efforts to spur job creation in the private sector," she said in prepared remarks. "Just [last] month, Congress has passed and the President has signed  the HIRE Act to give small businesses a tax break for hiring new workers and to create jobs building the infrastructure of the future."

The Labor Department showed job gains of 162,000 in March, the largest one-month gain since May, 2007.

But not everyone is happy with today's news. 

Ways and Means ranking Republican Dave Camp (Mich.) estimates that congressional efforts to turn the economy around have fallen short of expectations. 

"While positive job growth is welcome news, this still leaves the administration 6.7 million short of its promise that its stimulus would create 3.7 million jobs by the end of 2010," Camp said in prepared remarks. "During the rest of the year, the economy will need to add more than 750,000 jobs per month -- almost 5 times the pace of the job growth in March -- to reach that target."

William Dunkelberg, chief economist for the National Federation of Independent Businesses, said small business job reductions have come to an end, but prosperity will not return until increases in demand for goods and services make a comeback. 

"There is little enthusiasm among owners to hire more workers, primarily due to continued weak sales trends," he said in prepared remarks.