Jobless Rate Lowest In 24 Years Dow Has Strongest Week Ever

The nation’s unemployment rate tumbled below 5 percent last month for the first time in nearly a quarter-century, with job levels boosted by a robust, low-inflation economy.

“It’s worker heaven,” declared economist Allen Sinai of Primark Decision Economics. “This myth that the American worker is an unhappy camper went away eight to 10 months ago. There are plenty of jobs available.”

Meanwhile, news that the Clinton administration and congressional negotiators agreed to cut taxes and balance the budget by 2002 helped the Dow Jones average advance 95 points to close at 7,071.

That capped the best one-week point gain - 332 points - in the history of the average and brought it within 14 points of its March 11 record high. The week’s percentage gain, nearly 5 percent, was the best in more than five years.

The booming economy helped seal the budget deal by providing a windfall of billions in unexpected tax revenue. But Sinai and other analysts cautioned that the fine print in the unemployment report offered evidence economic growth already is slowing to a less spectacular, though more sustainable, pace.

Joblessness, as measured by a survey of households, fell to a seasonally adjusted 4.9 percent in April from 5.2 percent a month earlier, the Labor Department said Friday.

It was the lowest unemployment rate since December 1973 when Richard Nixon was president and years before most workers now in their 30s obtained their first full-time jobs.

Washington totals were unavailable, but Idaho’s jobless rate was 5.1 percent, down three tenths of a point. Claims for jobless benefits declined in every county.

A separate survey of businesses showed modest payroll gains of 142,000 in April and 139,000 in March after February’s increase of 314,000 and 259,000 in January.

Analysts said that suggested some ebbing in the momentum of economic growth from a decade-high rate of 5.6 percent in the first three months of 1997.