This morning the stock market rose a bit even though the jobs numbers were worse than expected (this makes sense if you buy the idea that there is no logical explanation for daily market movements). Investors expected the unemployment rate to top 7.9% with 648,000 jobs lost in February and the actual numbers were worse -- 8.1% and 651,000, respectively.

But do you really care about government statistics? The simple fact is that if you're now unemployed you're scrambling to find a job and it's probably very tough. And if you have a job, you're worried you won't have it for much longer. I meet with several undergraduate and MBA students each week who are looking for help to find jobs. And the simple reality is that there are no easy answers. But I have three ideas.

Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, today unveiled a new $210 billion federal spending plan that he says would create jobs in construction and environmental services.

The Obama proposal would invest money over 10 years in two programs, the largest of which would be a $150 billion effort to create 5 million "green collar" jobs to develop more-environmentally friendly energy sources.

The remaining $60 billion would fund a National Infrastructure Reinvestment Bank to rebuild the nation's highways, bridges, airports and other public facilities. Obama said the construction fund would create nearly 2 million jobs, many of them in construction directly - - a sector hard-hit by the housing sector's correction - - the nation's most severe housing slump in more than 20 years.

Rival Democratic Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, called Obama's effort unoriginal. Neera Tanden, Clinton's policy director, said Obama was offering ideas Clinton proposed months ago. "Voters may ask themselves that if Senator Obama cannot produce his own ideas on the campaign trail, how will he solve new problems as president?" Tanden said in a memo e-mailed to reporters, The Associated Press reported.

Furthermore, the Republican National Committee, which seeks to portray Obama as a tax-and-spend liberal, included Obama's plan on its 'Obama Spend-O-Meter.' The Republicans assert that Obama's announced programs would add $850 billion in federal spending over four years, including health care, education, national service and foreign aid programs, among others. The RNC's web site did not break down the asserted total by year, but economist Steve Affinito told BloggingStocks Wednesday, assuming equal, annual appropriations of $212.5 billion, the total would not be an unreasonable nor an unwarranted outlay, from an economic standpoint, in his interpretation.

"I don't know where the RNC obtained its $850 billion total, but for the sake of argument, even it was $220 billion per year, that's fairly modest, given the services it includes, including universal health insurance," Affinito said. "Also, given the current state of the economy we may find we may need another $150-$200 billion economic stimulus this year, just to keep the economy growing. So in that regard, Sen. Obama's proposal is insinc with the times and a net positive for the U.S. economy."