Economic Conditions Dictate Cautious Movements

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An old line about employment and the economy says that when your neighbor loses his job, the economy is in a recession. When you lose your job, it's a depression.

If so, then last month, 93,000 more Americans were in a depression. Eighty thousand jobs evaporated last month and revised data showed 13,000 more job losses in the prior month than originally estimated. The unemployment rate rose to 5.1 percent, an increase of 0.3 percentage points.

Uncle Sam eased the job pressures by adding 18,000 jobs, but as some people sarcastically might point out, there never is a recession in the Beltway area.

The latest employment report merely was another in a string …