Now we all know that these numbers suggested that if you were looking for a job, the want ads are the place to look. Monster.com also surveyed newspapers and competing websites for help wanted ads and found that, and their index is not used by the Fed - yet - there is a recovery in the jobs market underway. For this, champagne corks should be heard in other places than on Pennsylvania Avenue.

But people out here in the trenches do not necessarily know what to believe. Neither I am afraid, do the economist or the columnists who write about them. Let's begin with the columnists and work our way backwards to the numbers.

Princeton economist, New York Times columnist, and vocal critic of the current administration Paul Krugman was taken to task by noted economist and current administration supporter - at least when it comes to economic direction and policy - Gene Epstein this past weekend in Barron's. The subject was the fuzzy and furry numbers published about jobs this past Friday.

It is understandable that Washington in full election year mode would celebrate the report. Mr. Epstein did but did so defensively. His suggestion that all of the "dots can now be connected" was probably a bit premature although, his assertion that we should use averages of three months instead of spot calls such as Friday's number was not. But if we were to use those numbers before the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised them. his argument would have held less weight. January and February's numbers were revised upward giving Mr. Epstein the ammunition to say that 171,000 jobs were created each month (on average) in the first quarter of the year, which, he added, is "about right for this stage of the recovery".

But Mr. Epstein failed to tell us at what stage this recovery should be in. Using the exaggerated growth posted in the third quarter of last year (also a revised number) to average out the dismal showing of the last quarter of '03, a 6.2% GDP growth looks positively stunning next to this years first quarter growth of 5%. This is why jobs must be created, he asserts, to keep up with demand.

This is about where Mr. Epstein takes on Mr. Krugman. Paul Krugman has continued to recognize the disparaged worker, as the BLS does in its current report. The number reported in that release was 514,000 which is about the same as a year earlier. He suggested that Mr. Krugman understand the BLS for what it is, a government form of the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Accusing the agency of playing practical jokes with the data, much like the Comedy Central show does with news, might make his own numerical argument suspect.

Was the BLS just joking when they reported that the 300,000 jobs created across a broad spectrum of industries - manufacturing has been flat - was, as the data suggests, all part-time help? Calling glitches in reports nothing but practical tom foolery is in itself an argument against how the numbers are reported and interpreted.

Trying to keep track of redesigned questionnaires, changes in wording and revisions of numbers take some serious column inches, real estate that is portioned more tightly than living quarters in the Big Apple.

Mr. Epstein was nice enough to tell us how the trick was performed though. Although not one for the Gathering for Gardner, a yearly assembly of mathematicians, magicians and puzzle makers, Mr. Epstein should have displayed the Labor Bureau's trick which, showed great similarity to the trick performed at this year's gathering by Jamy Ian Swiss. The audience, whose fascination with the deception and sometimes obviousness of numbers is a devoted tribute to Martin Gardner former columnist for Scientific American, watched Mr. Swiss take a closed eye volunteer from the audience and run a wire hanger through her body. Although nothing of the kind was done, the experience was good not only for the participant but also the audience who had the trick explained.

Mr. Epstein could have shown us, and Paul Krugman that all of the new jobs created point to an economic recovery. At the same time he should show us that those jobs came entirely from workers who once had careers and are willing to take anything in any industry to do what workers are supposed to do - protect their families and themselves from poverty. No one can say they are succeeding however. Weekly numbers that tell us how many hours were worked and whether we were making more money declined.

Directly from the report is the following:
Total employment in March held at 138.3 million, and the employment population ratio the proportion of the population age 16 and over with jobs was essentially unchanged at 62.1 percent. The civilian labor force was about unchanged over the month at 146.7 million, and the labor force participation rate remained at 65.9 percent.

What has made economist even more worried is their obvious and exaggerated misses in recent months. Obviously they were in on the joke, with the exception of Fed governors Bernanke, Gramlich and Kohn who up until last week did not see any significant possibility that jobs numbers would increase and force the Central Bank's hand (a card trick no doubt) and raise rates. Current wagers have the interest rate changed before the election in September at a 100% probability. Or is that another economic illusion?

The jobs number, the sluggish and apprehensive growth of the economy, and the chance that this is all teetering on a false set of hope that money will remain cheap and policy will remain accommodative is no economic slight of hand as Mr. Epstein and his fellow economists would have us believe. It is the truth in the eye of the beholder.

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