melissa: economist peter morici is listening in from d.c. and someone used to compile data he knows the employment report inside and out. don't miss what he has to say about america's job prospects and what he thinks about the validity of today's number. vice president biden going a step too far, this time bashing one of my favorite airports, the nerve! trust me i'm not only person around here upset bit. do you ever have too much money? [ male announce] e new new york is open. open to innovation. open to ambition. open to boldids. that's y n york s a new plan -- dozens of tax free zones all across the state. move here, expand here, or start a new business here we're new york. if there's something that creates more jobs, and ows more businesses... 're open to it. start a tax-free business at startup-ny.com. melissa: so you win some, you loose some. another disappointing jobs report today but it did have a some silver linings. unemployment did droo to 6.6%. so we have 10 million still out of work but the economy may be moving forward i guess a

our dynamic duo of jared bernstein and peter morici. jared, we have this 6.6% unemployment rate now, but that doesn't really tell the whole story, does it. >> no. i mean, last month we were sitting here saying we expected 2,000 jobs. we ended up with 74,000. this month we expected 180,000. we ended up with 113,000. we thought that december number, that 74,000, that patry december number, would be revised up. it was revised up from 74,000 to 75,000. so i'm beginning to think like that character montoya in "the princess bride," this word expectation, it doesn't mean what you think it means. >> whoa, "princess bride" references 50 seconds into the show. >> nice. >> happey friday. >> so there is underlying weakness. i will say this report wasn't as bad as last month's and i actually think it's a little better than a lot of folks are unpacking. if you get into the weeds, there were some decent numbers. the participation rate picked up 0.2%, but you really have to worry if the job market is once again downshifting. >> peter, respond to what j

professor peter morici from the university of maryland. cal, i will start with you. is this a good thing we have banks in the mix? >> there are options that are available but still federal loans for some students, undergraduates, perkins loans, subsidized stafford loans come as part of aid package, free application for student federal aid are interest-free while the student is in school. you want to first start with those. gerri: right. i understand. do you think it is better news, good news there are more lenders in the marketplace generally? >> that can be gooddto see. but with those private loans it will depend on credit score. cosigner for those loans. and not everybody gets low teaser rates. you need to shop around. there are some states that have loans. connecticut has the loans that are more attractive than the federal option. you need to look before you leap. gerri: that is always good advice. look before you leap. peter, to you, you see the private, the banks getting into this. is that a good news when you know that we have trillions of dollars of student lo

now to make sense of it, let's bring in dan gross and peter morici. welcome to you both. peter, your take today. >> well, this is extraordinarily disappointing. we expected a colder than normal winter to have a consequence, but the construction sector looked good. this really does indicate we are in a slower period this first half of 2014 than we were in the second half of last year. the economy has shifted from third back down to second gear. >> yeah, dan, let's look to peter's point what industries we're talking about here. who's hiring, construction, 48,000, professional business services up 36,000. the leisure and hospitality industry up 24,000, manufacturing an anemic 21,000. >> all that isn't bad, the government cut 29,000 positions, federal, state, local. that is not supposed to happen. we're about 1 million short of government employees since 2010. if you were to add that in, it's not as tragic. you know, when you look at the household survey, which is how we derive the unemployment rate, the labor force bumped up in january, there are 500,000 more people who said

joining me now, economist peter morici, united advisors chief market strategist, scott martin. he is also a fox business contributor. thanks to both of you for joining us. peter, let me start with you. the idea is this is the beginning of the chain reaction. we see the fed tightening a lot of money they had been pumping into the system before was flowing into emerging markets and things like currencies chasing yields. now that money is drying up. and as a result those suffer, companies that sell stuff around the world suffer as a result. one of the reasons we're seeing stock market go down. is this beginning of a chain reaction do you think. >> oh, i don't think we have a chain reaction but we have an adjustment going on. the money is not drying up. the fed is not pumping additional money each month into the market as it was before. it is not taking any out and still putting some in. but they expect interest rates in the united states to be higher. so the money is coming here. moreover they expect u.s. stock prices to probably be a bit more secure than in developing countries be

our dynamic duo of jared bernstein and peter morici.nt rate now, but that doesn't really tell the whole story, does it. >> no. i mean, last month we were sitting here saying we expected 2,000 jobs. we ended up with 74,000. this month we expected 180,000. we ended up with 113,000. we thought that december number, that 74,000, that patry december number, would be revised up. it was revised up from 74,000 to 75,000. so i'm beginning to think like

economist peter morici. see you this morning. >> nice to be with you. >> start with the minimum wage, peter, he wants congress a prove that minimum wage of 10:10 an hour. will that help or hurt the economy in your estimation? >> that's a 40% increase. since the last time he raised the minimum wage we have had 9% inflation. we are talking about a 30% increase in labor costs mcdonald's. will have to, long with other restaurants, essentially shut restaurants, do things to save labor, they have fewer customers and there will be fewer jobs. it's a jobs killer. >> what about obamacare on young people, asking congress to spend the mandate that all americans obtain excessive and expensive healthcare basically but pushing this on young people. we know that the signups have been less than even lackluster being nice. >> well, you just had the president and the minority leader on tv and they can't explain or deal with web sites that simply don't function. the thing to do is to postpone the mandate for individuals the way

we're asking a professor at the university of maryland peter morici. >> nice to see you this morning. to be with you. >> republicans have jumped on 500,000 job loss number. say don't pay attention to that number. it's squishy at best. governor o'malley says we will lift up 16 million people out of poverty if we move it to 10.10 an hour. what would do you say? >> whenever you raise a wage by a union contract or law, you are going to make some people better off. you are also going to throw other people out of jobs. that 500,000 is not an inconsequential number. it's very large in the grand scheme of things it would raise unemployment by 3/10ths and throw those 500,000 folks deeper into poverty. it's robbing peter to pay paul. it's just bad economics. it's not good business policy. what the president is looking for is a wedge issue to distract attention from the healthcare debacle, you know, for the fall elections. >> so the cbo prediction for this 10.10 an hour would put it at 900,000 fewer below the poverty line as a result of it in their prediction. is there though a better way where