In other economic news, the nation’s unemployment rate has jumped to 8.1 percent, the highest since 1983. Employers cut 651,000 jobs in February. 4.4 million jobs have been lost over the past fourteen months. In a speech in Columbus, Ohio, on Friday, President Obama called the number of lost jobs “astounding.”

President Obama: “I don’t need to tell the people of this state what statistics like this mean, because so many of you have been watching jobs disappear long before this recession hit. And I don’t need to tell this graduating class what it’s like to know that your job might be next, because up until a few weeks ago, that is precisely the future that this class faced — a future that millions of Americans still face right now. Well, that is not a future I accept for the United States of America.”