Today's Jobs Report: Not Great

Economists expected 225,000 jobs to be created in August—but today's jobs report reveals that just 142,000 were added, the "lowest level of job growth" seen this year and "well below" the average of 212,000 we've seen over the past year, the Wall Street Journal reports. The unemployment rate ticked down from 6.2% to 6.1%, as had been expected, but, as the AP notes, that's because fewer people were working or looking for work.

Revisions to June and July were also disappointing: July's jobs number was revised upward, but June's was revised downward, with the result being that 28,000 fewer jobs were added those months than had been previously estimated. "Yes, this headline number is disappointing," writes Steven Russolillo at WSJ. "But keep an eye on the longer-term trend. Payroll gains have averaged 207,000 over the past three months. And for the year the economy has averaged 215,000 job gains every month, the best pace of job growth since 1999." (More jobs report stories.)