PBS NewsHour : WMPT : January 6, 2012 6:00pm-7:00pm EST : Free Borrow & Streaming : Internet Archive (2024)

captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions >> woodruff: there was good news on the economic front today as the unemployment rate dropped and employers added new jobs. good evening. i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. on the newshour tonight, we get the latest on the new numbers and assess what they mean for the recovery. >> woodruff: then, with just a few days to go before the nation's first primary, we update the presidential race. >> brown: gwen ifill sat down with five registered republicans and independents who plan to vote next tuesday. >> as a candidates struggle to break out, i'm here in new hampshire talking to voters who are struggling to decide. >> woodruff: mark shields and david brooks analyze the week's news. >> brown: and ray suarez examines a new report showing

good teachers have a lasting impact on their students' lives and livelihoods. >> woodruff: that's all ahead on tonight's newshour. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: bnsf railway. >> the william and flora hewlett foundation, working to solve social and environmental problems at home and around the world. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> brown: the u.s. economy added more than 200,000 jobs last month, beating expectations and raising hopes that a stronger recovery might be underway.

spurred by a surge in hiring in december, the nation ended 2011 with a jobs report that had some of the best numbers seen in some time. among them, the unemployment rate-- down to 8.5%-- the lowest in nearly three years, and falling for the fourth consecutive month. the economy has now added 100,000 jobs or more for each of the last six months. that hasn't happened since april 2006. and the drop in the jobless rate came from new hires, not discouraged workers giving up the job hunt. for president obama, it was welcome relief. he spoke today at the consumer financial protection bureau. >> after losing more than eight million jobs in the recession, obviously, you know, we have a lot more work to do. but it is important for the american people to recognize that we've now added 3.2 million new private sector jobs over the

last 22 months, nearly two million new jobs last year alone. >> brown: republican house speaker john boehner released a statement calling it: "good news" but he noted: "today marks the 35th consecutive month of unemployment above 8%, and too many americans continue to struggle to find their next job. the president also called on congress to extend the payroll- tax cut for the rest of 2012 to help the recovery maintain momentum by bolstering spending and putting some of the 13 million americans who remain unemployed back to work. some parsing of the numbers now, from diane swonk, senior managing director and chief economist for mesirow financial, a diversified financial services firm based in chicago; and mark vitner, managing director and senior economist with wells fargo, where he tracks u.s. and regional economic trends. diane swonk, let's start with focus on the positive signs in today's report.

this was better than expect. where was the hiring coming from? >> well, we saw broad gains in a lot of different places. some of the biggest games were in things like transportation. it wasn't just those free shipping that we saw there. we actually saw a lot of couriers and messengers being used by corporate america that were loosening their coffers on all that cash they have on their balance sheets. we also saw a lot of hiring in the food and hotel industry, the entertainment industry, again corporations returning to all of that kind of holiday spending they once did, entertaining their clients and their workers. so those people who are working got a few more holiday parties this holiday season. >> brown: so mark vitner, what else did you see that was positive? what about the quality of these kinds of jobs. >> well, the quality of jobs has improved. it's improved a little bit and it needed to. because in the previous four or five months we really saw a lot of jobs being added in low-paying industries. and there was still some of that in this report. but the overall number was

better. and we saw broader job gains. we saw gains in manufacturing. 23,000 jobs there, and a lot of those jobs that were add, were in higher skilled industries like industrial machinery, motor vehicles, computers and electronics. so relatively high-paying jobs and that should bolster the income billion-- income numbers. and that's really one of the more vulnerable points that we have in the economy right now because we haven't had a whole lot of income growth over the last year. >> does it, diane swonk, does it begin to look as though companies have a new attitude? a jumping in or at least dipping a foot into the water in terms of new hires? >> i think it's more of a pinky toe. >> pinky toe into new hires. we are seeing the trend in the right direction. that's the good news. we are also seeing a lot of what looks to be new business formation, new companies starting out. that really was the backbone of hiring in the 1990s. so we want to see that i agree with mark. you really need to see a lot

more sold i had wage gains. one month does not a trend make. and this has been a real turn around in this particular month, of finally seeing the composition of jobs a little better and a little stronger for wages out there. because we had been seeing in previous months when we were seeing the job gains, to the very high quality jobs. and a lot of people anecdotally reporting they were trading down. in order get a job they were accepting a job at a lower pay just to be able to make ends meet. >> brown: well you do, mark vitner, over a series of months you see regular gains now. so of course the key question is are we at some kind of turning point or potentially there. >> i'm not so sure that i would call it a turning point there are a lot of things at play here. one of them has to do with the seasonal adjustment process which is probably biased the numbers in the better direction. both the employment numbers and the unemployment rate to the downside. and i don't think it's a coincidence that the unemployment rate has fallen in each of the last four months. those happen to be the worst four months for the economy

following the onset of the financial crisis. and that's really biased the seasonals down. and i think that what we are likely to see say little bit of carry over into 2012 by a little bit of a payback in the spring and we may see the unemployment rate rise a bit. another thing that may happen is that as more and more people hear that the unemployment rate has come down and the employment numbers are looking better, some of the folks who dropped out of the labor force may come back in and that may actually push the unemployment rate back up a bit. so we're not out of the woods and we may see another bump in the road but this is clearly a step in the right direction. >> expand on that diane swonk in terms of the people who are out looking now, i was wondering how the psychology works. does confidence begin to build in for companies and workers themselves or does as mark just said can also raise the unemployment rate at the same time, right? >> well, actually that's what we would see first. is you tend to see more people come into the working force and come back and try to look for jobs.

it is actually not a bad thing because they've got hope that they can actually get a job and they eventually do get it you want it to rise and fall again. i agree with mark on that. we are still looking at a very uneven recover. i do think there will be payback. some of the gains are suspect, i agree with mark on that. construction gains, it was 60 degrees here today in chicago, almost 60 and it's not usual for january. it's been usually warm in large parts of the country and that helps some of those construction numbers that we saw positive off of a very low base. we know construction is clearly not a boom industry right now. so this is still a very uneven recovery and really until housing comes back you're not going to see a more robust recovery in the u.s. economy. and as mark said there is going to be payback. we got a lot of head wents out there we have to deal with. political uncertainty in europe, a recession in europe. also our own u.s., certainly political gridlock is not helping the u.s. economy or confidence for that matter. >> brown: it is of course, mark vitner, we're sort of

been here before in a way, just i think a year ago things were looking up a little bit and then they went back south again. >> yeah, and the year before that we went through that as well. we were worried about a double dip in 2010 and also in 2011. and i don't know that we're going to be there again there 2012 but when you look at the obstacles that are out there and diane highlighted two of them but there is one other one which is iran. and one of the things that really, i get upset the apple cart last year was that spike in gasoline prices that fold the onset of the arab spring. and then we had the japanese earthquake which is not totally unforeseen. so we don't, we know there are a lot of potential stumbling blocks in front of us and who knows what else is out there. so when you ask that question about is this a turn, i think it's a step in the right direction. but i don't think it's the start of an acceleration in overall job growth. if you take into account all of the special factors in the employment data, you're

left with a number somewhere around 115,000 net new jobs. which is about the same number that were added in october and november. and i think that's probably where we'll be when we get the january numbers a month from now. maybe a tad better than that but somewhere in that ball park. >> diane you can just give us a brief glass half full version of this since there hasn't been a lot of good news for a long time. so today's numbers look better than before. >> the trend is in the right direction but i agree with mark. we saw a bit of a catch-up in the fourth quarter there will be giveback to that i don't think we're in for a double dip recession as long as europe cannot go into a financial crisis. that is the good news and the good news is it looks like the recovery is getting a little more resilient in the labor market but this is far from a boom. and it is particularly hard for those that are long-term unemployed to get reemployed. we're seeing a lot of people quitting their jobs now an getting new jobs. that is good news. that means there are some opportunities out there that weren't there before. but it's still a little bit

soon to say pop the champagne corks and you know, the recovery is finally here. >> brown: diane swonk, mark vit arener, thanks both very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: still to come on the newshour: presidential hopefuls on the campaign trail; voters in new hampshire; shields and brooks; plus, the lasting effects of good teaching. but first, the other news of the day. here's hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: in spite of the strong jobs report, stocks were mixed today as europe's financial woes continued to weigh down wall street. the dow jones industrial average lost more than 55 points to close at 12,360. the nasdaq rose four points to close at 2,674. for the first week of 2012, u.s. stocks rose-- the dow gained 1.2%; the nasdaq was up 2.7%. in syria, at least 25 people died when an explosion rocked a busy intersection in central damascus today. government officials claimed it was a suicide bombing, but opposition activists accused the syrian regime of staging the attack.

we have a report narrated by lindsey hilsum of independent television news. >> reporter: an explosion in the south of the syrian capital. the target seems to have been three buses carrying policemen. by the time a foreign reporter was taken to the scene nearly two hours later, the dead and injured had been removed. the government says this has the fingerprints of al-qaeda. but footage aired on state tv raises questions. why is someone putting police shields in the bus after the blast? and why is a man carrying a syrian state tv microphone placing these bags at the site? the opposition say that the government carried out the bombing to discredit them. on december the 23rd, the day arab league monitors arrived to observe the situation in syria, a similar explosion killed 44 people.

the government blamed armed gangs. but again, questions arised. the opposition say that ten of the names of those listed as dead in the blast appear on other lists of people killed in different incidents. today, there were anti- government demonstrations in several cities. these pictures were posted on youtube and not shown on syrian television. it's been reported that the arab league observers saw syrian soldiers shooting at the crowd in the damascus suburb of arbeen. the banner reads, "what is the use of the observers when assad's militias have fired shots before their eyes in arbeen?" this weekend, the observers will make their first report. the arab league will then have to decide what, if anything, they're going to do next. >> sreenivasan: the united nations has reported more than 5,000 people have been killed in syria's ten-month-long crackdown on opposition protests. five nato troops were killed in

a series of bombings in afghanistan today on top of three who died yesterday. the deaths all happened in the south of the country, the most volatile part of afghanistan. nato officials did not give the nationalities of the troops who were killed. separately, six children weren e city of trinkot in the south. they were rummaging through trash for food scraps when a bomb went off. pope benedict xvi named 22 new cardinals to the roman catholic church today. most of those who'll be elevated in next month's ceremony are european. the list also includes two americans-- archbishop timothy dolan of new york and former baltimore archbishop edwin o'brien. the new group of cardinals includes 18 under the age of 80, making them eligible to choose the pope's successor. adult brain function begins to decline as early as age 45. that's according to research published in this week's "british medical journal." the ten-year long study, which followed 7,000 men and women between the ages of 45 and 70, also found cognitive deterioration occurs more

quickly in older individuals. the finding runs counter to conventional wisdom that mental decline doesn't begin before the age of 60. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: as the g.o.p. candidates hit the trail today, mitt romney used his decisive lead to go after the president. and romney's allies put rick santorum on the defensive for using earmarks. the man to catch in new hampshire started his day in south carolina. several new polls showed mitt romney also taking an early lead in the palmetto state, with rick santorum rising as well. at a rally in conway, the former massachusetts governor took aim at president obama's new defense initiative. >> yesterday, he announced a major program to reduce the capacity of our military. inexcusable, and unthinkable and it must be reversed. we have to protect our military. ( applause ) >> woodruff: meanwhile, arizona senator john mccain, who is traveling with romney, chastised other g.o.p. candidates for

their support of earmarks, federal funds members of congress direct to specific projects back home. >> when newt gingrich was speaker of the house, earmarks exploded. when rick santorum sponsored earmark after earmark, i went down to the floor and fought against those. >> woodruff: santorum held a series of town halls throughout new hampshire today. in dublin, he defended himself against the earmark attacks, saying he was doing right by his home state of pennsylvania. >> so you can say earmarks are bad. there are men and women who have an improved quality of life and maybe are alive today because we did that. am i defending earmarks? no, because they got abused. and they did in fact lead to higher spending. that's why we put a stop to them because the public saw this as a referendum on whether you were serious about cutting spending. >> woodruff: gingrich, campaigning in newport, also went on the attack against the frontrunners.

he spoke this morning on abc's "good morning, america." >> everyone assumes and i think romney has a huge lead because this is one of his three best states, but it's also the right place to lay out how big the gap is between a reagan conservative and a massachusetts moderate. >> ifill: somewhere amidst this pack of microphones and cameras is former utah governor jon huntsman. fresh off an endorsem*nt from the "boston globe," he was swamped by reporters today in concord, new hampshire. >> do you feel you're getting a fair shake by the new hampshire voters? >> we'll know soon enough. wherever i go, i feel i'm getting a pretty fair shake, absolutely. >> ifill: after taking a couple of days off, texas representative ron paul made his way to new hampshire today. he spoke to a boisterous crowd in nashua. >> they call us dangerous. and you know, in a way, we are to their empire! that's what we're dangerous to! ( cheers and applause ) we're dangerous to the special interests and the big spenders,

the people who want to run our lives. >> ifill: governor rick perry was scheduled to arrive in new hampshire this evening. in south carolina, he began airing this tv ad focusing on his roots. >> as the son of tenant farmers from the west texas town of paint creek, i learned the values of hard work, faith, and family. the values i learned served me well as governor of texas and will continue to guide me as president. >> ifill: the entire g.o.p. field will next share the stage tomorrow in manchester, for the first in a pair of weekend debates. >> brown: gwen ifill talked with five new hampshire republicans and independents weighing their choices before tuesday's primary. she sat down with them last night in a home in the town of bedford. >> ifill: thank you all for joining us. i'm so anxious to hear what you have to say about these candidate was have taken over your state this

week,ana, i will start with you. what are you hearing so far that you like from these candidates. and what are you hearing that you still have questions about? >> i like the candidates that are talking about working together and trying to move things forward. i'm not hearing it from a lot of them. most of them are saying, you know, not obama, not obama. which i guess is one way to go. but i think that the best way for the government to pov forward is to start work together and start accomplishing some things. so any candidate that is talking about that, is speaking to something that i think is important. >> ifill: ted, thank you for having us in your home. >> it's my pleasure. welcome back to new hampshire. >> ifill: thank you. what are you hearing that you like that and that you don't like. >> some of the things that i like is the fact that i hear some of the candidates talking about solutions. and you know that's important to me. i mean we are knee a deep-- we have deep problems here in this country. and i'm more solution driven. i think that's real important. the thing that i'm not really happy about is the way that they're attacking each other. it's okay to say here's our

differences. but what i am seeing and hearing is more vindictive kind of thing. and that's not what our country needs right now. our country really needs solutions. >> ifill: i see you nodding as ted says that. >> absolutely. i think if we can't be civil, then we're not a civil society. and i see a lot of noncivility. i just don't like it at all. >> ifill: who's guilty of it? >> they're all guilty of it you know, i'm partisan. i'm bipartisan. i'm a republican. i'm a democrat. i really, honestly, i don't care. i just want them to get the job done. >> ifill: dennis you are retired but you voted. >> does one sound different, feel different. >> i have to agree with ted. i think this one is a little bit much negativism. and i think is really wrong for this country. we're badly divide and too much fighting going on. and not looking for solutions that this country really needs it to e

we're going the wrong way. and i always tell my friends, you know, i'm the generation that's checking out. but i've got kids and grandkids that are inheriting this. and i want it to be good for them. >> ifill: josh, are you an iraq war vet. you feel strongly that things have to change and there's got to be someone to talk tough to change it. >> basically the biggest problem that i see with the gridlock that we've been in, i would say since congress changed hands, actually no, not even since that, i would say since the beginning of the global war on terror, we've been doing one thing. and we haven't come up with a way out. we haven't difined what it is. that and will basically victory on the global war on terror. so until we define victory. until we develop a plan to achieve that victory and then to end the war, soldiers are going to continue to die. >> ifill: and who do you think has got a plan?

>> i think that dr. paul is the first person. the only person now that gary johnson is out of the race. all of the other cab datas are planning on continuing the global war on terror without any objectives. >> ifill: so let's get down to brass tacks. which of these candidates is saying things that you think you need to hear. >> i look at romney as being a leader. somebody who has step mood situations that weren't necessarily going the right direction. i think he has a great business experience and right now we need to get the economy cranking and get some jobs going. so i think he's well capable of doing that. he's the right guy for this time. >> ifill: so ted f the polls are to be believed, what dennis is saying is what a lot of other new hampshire folks are saying, what are you saying? >>. >> i've listened to mitt. i have linsed to them all. i've met many of them and have talked to them face-to-face. the one that i'm moving towards is newt. i have heard him in the debates. i've talked to him.

i have seen him here in new hampshire. and what i see is a bright guy. he has solutions and he's brought up solutions and he's talked solutions. i will say, though, gwen, the thing that concerned me both is based on the iowa caucuses and his reaction that has concerned me a bit. because. >> ifill: which reaction. >> well, he came across as being very angry, versus saying you know what, i lost this in iowa, i will get the next one. >> ifill: i'm really curious about this, anna, because a lot of people say that people in new hampshire don't much pay attention to what happened in eye watch. but certainly iowa tossed everything up in the air. >> iowa doesn't influence the way i'm going it to vote personally. when i look at the candidates, i look to see who's social policies i'm comfortable with or depending on the range that's available, who i can live with, who seems like they're most willing to come to the middle. and then i go from there. so in this field there is really only a few people who are moderate and they're

trying to hide it desperately. naturally. but so those are really the candidates that i'm bouncing between. >> ifill: you've got less than a week, anna. >> oh i know. >> ifill: and. >> well, i've nar today down to two. probably wean mitt and huntsman. >> ifill: josh, you said earlier that you worked last time for ron paul. you're supporting ron paul this time. how, why is he doing some of better? why in your opinion is he getting so much more attention, so much more support, so much more money than he did four years ago? >> simply the things that he was talking about four years ago have, they've panfested. i mean he predicted the financial melt down back in 2001 and warned about it for almost a decade before it happened. he warned about the consequences of the iraq war, especially the long-term consequences. and now we're actually seeing those consequences and that opens people's minds to the idea that this guy who did warn us might have the solutions.

>> ifill: debbi, so many republicans i've talked to and independents say they are animated this year by the desire to replace president obama. how important is that to you? how disappointed or not disappointed are you by the current incumbent president? >> well, i voted for him last time. and i am very disappointed in what hasn't happened. there were so many things that were promised so many things that he said we were going to get or that were going to change or were going to happen. and whether it is because of what he walked into or whether it's congress or lack of leadership, i'm not sure. but i'm very disappointed with that. >> ifill: so that means among the people who are running to replace him you're leaning toward -- >> i'm actually leaning very strongly towards mr. huntsman. because of his talk and his conversation about education and economy and how they intersect. and how important those two things are. they have to be together. mr. romney is a very nice

man. i've met him. but somebody asked him in one of the town hall meetings about how middle america was going to get back to having a life. and he said yeah, you know, i'm really worried about my investments too. hello. middle america doesn't have any investments a more. we-- we don't have that benefit that we used to have. >> ifill: is anybody listening a flu to rick santorum who has been running here a lot? but hadn't really done well until iowa? >> yeah, i actually, rick was my second between newt and rick. what i like about rick is his principleses and his values. i spoke to him on several occasions and had a very good feel. >> ifill: does this election need or does the next president need to be an outsider, an insider or someone who has a little bit of outside inside cred?

>> i would say outside inside cred. i this i that washington is an institution and if you don't have any experience, then you're going to spend part of your time there, your short time there just figuring out the lay of the land and how it works. but if you have someone who is too entrenched in the way things are working, then they're not working right now. so that's got to hurt you. >> i think one of the things besides the inside out is we need a collaborator. the president sets the tone. it is a top down kind of thing. i expect the president to be a collaborator. >> i only want the congress to work together when they are actually working towards something that i think will help the country. i don't want them to collaborate on spending money that i haven't earned yet. >> ifill: so collaboration is overrated. >> it has to be for a purpose that actually benefits the american people. >> and i think really, whether you collaborate or don't collaborate, if you aren't in touch with the american public, you can

collaborate all you want but it's to the going to benefit us. >> ifill: well, as you all approach primary day for those of you who made up your mind, i wish your candidates good luck. and for those of you still deciding, i wish you good luck. thank you all very much. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. the people were selected with the help of civic organizations in new hampshire. and for the record none of the voters mentioned texas governor rick perry in that conversation. as we said earlier, he is headed to new hampshire this evening. and now for more on the campaign margaret warner talks with gwen. >> warner: hi, gwen. you, that was a fascinating discussion. are you quite a veteran of new hampshire primaries. what struck you about those voters as compared to, say, voters in republican primaries past? >> ifill: well, i was interested in the degree to which they really were not talking about the candidates as much as they were talking about what it is the candidates have to say. now four years ago when we were here in new hampshire,

margaret, when two primaries going on. the democrats and the republicans, so theres with a lot more going on. a lot more information, even a lot more television advertising. right now because it is a republican primary which undeclared voters can participate, people are thinking very carefully about what these candidates have to say. there's a reason why rick perry's name didn't come up. he's at 1% in the latest poll. he hasn't been really campaigning in new hampshire. on the other hand, someone like jon huntsman who has been campaigning here is only at 8% in the poll. so people are make, or at least seem to me in the people in that room last night and voters i talked to along the way, seem to be making their decisions based on a series of principleses rather than just whoever has put on the last television ad. and that's uniquely new hampshire. >> warner: well, this is always a famously volatile final week in the new hampshire primary. is there much movement among, say, the top rung of candidates. is romney suffering from these attacks, is santorum getting any kind of bounce or second look after iowa? >> ifill: you know, this is one of these things where you take the numbers that you see and put it up

against what your eyes see. what my eyes have been able to see is that people are taking a second look at santorum. but when you look at the numbers, the latest wmur, which is the abc affiliate here in new hampshire, their latest poll out this evening shows romney still out way ahead with like 44% of the vote, followed by ron paul with less than half of that at 20%. and then there is this weird little fight for third place among jon huntsman, newt gingrich and rick santorum, each of them w7 or 8%. so when you look at the numbers, not much has changed. the question i find compelling about this primary is not some of who is ahead and who is behind, but what it is everyone's talk approximating about. what is moving these voters to either stick with their candidate or consider and decide later on. >> warner: now how is rick santorum, at least the socially conservative part of his message playing in new hampshire which as we know does not have a kind of evangelical base that iowa has. >> ifill: well, exactly, margaret. not only is new hampshire considered to be the home of far more moderate

republicans, as well as undeclared candidates who can vote in republican primary, but also they're not a big church going population here in new hampshire. so someone like rick santorum comes in. and people are listening to him but then late yesterday he went to speak at a college, a group of college students organization in concord, new hampshire, and started it talking about gay marriage and compared it to polygamy and got booed off the stage. then afternoon a whole lot of other protestors including occupy movement people as well as gay marriage proponents started showing up at events and heckling him again. his response probably not very judiciously was, well, this is like most people in new hampshire, that's what they do. that's not exactly how you win over new hampshire people. >> warner: well, gwen, that is fascinating reporting. we'll look forward to it in the next coming days. >> ifill: thanks, margaret. >> brown: our pbs colleagues at "need to know" have also been in new hampshire documenting the economic challenges along one

street-- main street-- in nashua. here's an excerpt from tonight's program. >> towards the north end of main we found darrell's music hall, a successful family business for the past 43 years. but even here in this bright well run store, we found evidence of a similar struggle with debt, uncertainty and risk. adam darrell is going to take over the family business when his father kc retires. adam's wife roxanne carries 57,000 in college loan debt. >> when all is said and done we are paying about $110,000 with interest. it's an expense that we have. and we're going to have it for years to come. and it's a cost of going to school. will she benefit from it? i hope so. >> reporter: russ fontaine, the sales manager and resident piano tuner has nearly tripled the debt adam has.

he is trying to pay off roughly $140,000 dollars in student loans that he took out for his two daughters. >> you know, a couple of jobs, do what you can. my wife works, a little scary sometimes. so we dot best we can. >> now if the piano business were booming, everyone's money worries might be easier but it's not. >> adam's dad told us that at his feet a few years ago they operated three large stores and had 14 full-time employees. but now this extended downturn has reduced them to four employees and this one last store on main street. >> brown: that >> brown: "need to know" airs on most pbs stations tonight. >> woodruff: and to the analysis of shields and brooks-- syndicated columnist mark shields and "new york times" columnist david brooks. here with me in washington.

mark, i'm going to turn to you because are you there. listening to those iowa voters we just heard that excerpt from listening to gwen's interview with the voters. how much is the economy at issue for the voters among these republican contenders? >> well, the economy remains here quite special. with the anomaly of 2012 is that both early states, iowa and new hampshire have an employment rate considerably lower than that as a nation. but still the same sense of anxiety and concern are present with voters. i think it's the big thing that mitt romney has going for him quite frankly is that the sense that he is capable or competent of handling the economy. >> woodruff: david, how are the candidates play on that issue. i mean we hear a lot of different conversation but we haven't her that much about the economy from them. >> well, they talk about it a lot. it's long-term decline more

than a cyclical thing at this point. you know, the jobs numbers were pretty good today. and they may continue to be good one hopes for a couple more months but i'm not sure that is going to change the emotional tennor of this election. at least in iowa, and i haven't been in new hampshire for a couple of months t was a question of the long term, how my kids are going to do. the structural problems, the wave stagnation, the inequality, the sense that we lost some of our economic value, some of our sense of industry and responsible values. so those are core sort of economic values issues and i doubt some good numbers even for a couple of months is really going to change that basic structure. >> woodruff: and did i want to ask you about the job numbers. mark, is one or the other of the candidates playing into this issue more than another, taking advantage of it better than another? >> well, i think romney is, that has been his talking point. on the question of the numbers themselves, judy, i don't question david's analysis of the long-term implications. but good news is really

intoxicating. americans are starved for good news. and this is good news. and it is encouraging, granted it would need this pace for seven consecutive years to get back to where we were in 2008 and the number of jobs. but bob teeter, the late bob teeter who was george herbert walker bush's pollster and campaign manage never 1992 when president bush lost re-election to president clinton in large part because of the economy told me that, and everything else we learned since has confirmed it, that it takes a full quarter of good news, three months before people start to perceive a change in their economic outlook. and in other words, the economy was improving enough in 1992 but voters didn't feel it that way. if it's going to be good news, this is the time for the obama campaign for it to begin is in early 2012 and to continue through the election.

otherwise if the economy is going to be a real political liability for the white house. >> woodruff: david, what b let's tuck about the fallout from iowa. how much of one is there? how much are new hampshire voters paying attention? we heard gwen talk to that group of voters about it. but how much does it matter that romney came in first by 8 votes, santorum right behind? >> well, friday has been a very good day for mitt romney. the poll in new hampshire has the big lead is not surprising. the poll in south carolina is a little more impressive. he's up to about 38, that puts him above the 28%. >> woodruff: which is a surprise. >> i think that is a surprise. santorum does better but he's still far behind. and then, so this has been a good day. how are the weekends going to be. we have this debate saturday night, sunday morning. these two decade-- debates i think will be extremely nasty. i think newt gingrich is now an unexproducted missile going off in all directions. you've got a number of candidates really with a strong incentive to collaborate to take down romney.

how can survive this. how is the deteriorating emotional tenor going to change this race? so to the extent that it changes it, i think if will further help romney. i think people will see the nasdaqiness, we heard this from the voters with gwen earlier. they see the nasdaqiness. they just want to go for the responsible guy who is not fighting. so i think if he can rise above this and survive this weekend, these two debates, i think he will be sitting pretty. >> woodruff: mark, do you agree it does not pay for for these other candidates to go after romney and really try to rough him up? >> it's not a question of rough him up. they have to draw differences and distinctions, judy. for many of them its they their last chance. certainly newt gingrich sees it slipping away, nationally it is slipping, the numbers in south carolina hemorrhaged. jon huntsman has everything on this. they've got to come out of this with the narrative being a different narrative than romney is on his way to a coronation by new hampshire voters. but i think the real story coming out of iowa was rick santorum's victory speech. i mean that statement that

he made has touched more people that i have talked to since i've been here than any other since since the statement of this campaign. when he spoke, movingly, about his italian immigrant grandfather being a coal minor-- minor-- miner his entire life and when he died and he looked at his korpts in the funeral parlor and was struck by the size of his hands and that those hands dug freedom for me, he-- he established a real contrast between himself and mitt romney. that he was the proud product-- proud product of working class blue collar, not of privilege or power of prominence. and david's talked often about that constituency being an important republican constituency, an important american constituency. and he think he established an emotional connection with them that nobody else has in this campaign. >> woodruff: but does he have time to capitalize on that. >> not in new harp.

he has a ton more money, a million dollars more, but up to 2 million. he doesn't have time to buy ads in new hampshire, the question is whether he can do in south carolina where he will have a two week gap there and whether he can build on the message. he knows what he needs to do. he needs to tie values to the economy. it's not enough to talk about abortion and gay marriage, he certainly does not want to talk about that. >> woodruff: but that is what he keeps getting quoted. >> and that's why he has had a bad few days. but he knows he needs to show that our economic problems are in part of values problem that we have to talk about the dignity at work. we have to talk about risk-taking. we have to talk about building healthy families that will create human capital. he knows he needs to do all that he has no staff to really do all that. so if you've got teams of speechwriters and researchers who can unwheel programs, then it's a little easier than if you don't have any of that which he really does not have. he's got to go back to his own career and own book and writing to try to pull that out. we'll see if he can do that but if it is a question of avoiding all these distraction and hot button issues, and coming up with

an economic image-- message. >> woodruff: on santorum, do you see that he has an opportunity to capitalize on. >> yes, i think he's moving here, judy. i think the numbers are slow catching up with him, in the last two nights of the gallop national poll, he's been polling at 21% which is a september it up elling of his numbers before at the end of the year. there is no question he is moving. i agree that 9 event yesterday in concord we are got in discussion of same sex marriage and his opposition to it became quite testy was not helpful. but in a strange way today where he was picketed and you know, almost harangued by protestors probably in a strange way helps him. the same way that jon huntsman's endorsem*nt by the "boston globe", the "boston globe" endorsem*nt of a republican in a conservative primary is not

necessarily helpful. i mean it doesn't resolve jon huntsman's problem, just a little bit like the washington times conservative newspaper picking the union leader here picking a democrat in a primary, if anything it probably consciously leads to ignoring it. but i think that he doesn't have the kind of populous message that mike huckabee had or pat buchanan had before him or economic message the same way. but he does, he has established a connection and it's a vulnerability that romney has. romney does not have that emotional-- . >> woodruff: what about huntsman and the opening or not for him. >> i'm not sure there is that opening. he's been there a long time, still only polling 7 or 8. i think if you are a main street republican, you go to mitt romney at this point. now maybe he has that opening. i don't think he really ever figured out how to run the race. was he going to run as the moderate who would stand for clear moderation or some kind of other kind of conservative. i don't think he ever really

resolved that issue. santorum has one other advantage which seems sort of moderate, actually, which is most of the candidates, and especially romney are talking like my old colleagues at the "the wall street journal" editorial pages. a very free market party. a large part of the republican electorate is not like that. they believe in the entitlement programs. they believed in compassion conservatism. their lives are filled with insecurity. and they want government sometimes to give them a little more security. we saw that with huckabee. we saw that earlier with gary bauer, santorum represents a lot of that. so if you can build on that while still being friendly to capitalism that say distinction. >> woodruff: let's talk quickly about the man who came in a close third, ron paul in iowa. he is the one who david supposedly has the most enthusiastic, most passionate supporters. what can do with that? >> yeah, the question of whether he can expand beyond that at least when i was in new hampshire last and certainly four years ago, he leads the league in street signs. in lawn signs. he does have a passionate following, a much bigger following. it's younger. it's a little angrier following. and so i still think he has

trouble getting beyond from beyond new hampshire to nickles. i could be wrong, but i still don't, there is just never been a huge libertarian bloc. and when you think about the candidates, think about the campaigns a little, mostly think about the blocs in the electorate. there is a social conservative, a main street republican bloc, a libertarian bloc but it has never been that big and nobody is growing it. >> woodruff: how do you read ron paul. >> i think ron paul is a phenomenon. i mean you look at the results from iowa, half the people under the age of 30 voted for ron paul, who went there. the first time caucus-goers. that were ron paul. the independents were ron paul. i mean he's the one that expanded the republican turnout in iowa. now and then he blew it by going home to texas instead of coming here. this is a far more compatible state for him in terms of libertarianism, and sort of an anti-government and hands-off and leave me alone than iowa is.

or was. and you know, i don't know. here is the 76-year-old candidate well youngest following in the entire election. but he did go home to texas. he just returned to the state today soichlt don't know how he is doing. but he is running. he has been running a soiled second. >> woodruff: quick, 30 second, i want you both to ask you what do su have to say about rick perry who we are told is going to go on a 17 day bus tour of south carolina, and michele bachmann, david, who is gone. >> she had the good grace to drop out. i think rick perry should v the polls today were really bad for him. it sell barratting at the end of a race if you got no audience, nobody showing up. sometimes you got to know when the fat lady sings. >> warner: . >> woodruff: last word, mark. >> bob draurx strauss, the great democratic party chairman says the toughest thing is not rung for office, the toughest thing is pulling out of a race that you have lost before it's over. he said that's the toughest thing to do. and it's what rick perry has to do. because it's going to be-- it's going to hurt but

at's going to hurt longer the longer he stays in. >> woodruff: we're glad you are staying in, both of us, mark shields, david brooks, thank you >> brown: finally tonight, putting a price on the value of good teachers. a large and new study addresses just that. ray suarez has the story. >> suarez: the debate over testing in schools, and whether students' scores adequately reflect a teacher's performance, has been raging for well over a decade. now, a new study has tracked more than two and a half million students over two decades. it found test scores are indeed a good gauge for evaluating student performance. and the study found replacing a bad teacher with an average or good one can translate into a huge economic difference. combined, the students could earn hundreds of thousands of dollars more over a lifetime. we look at the study and the response it's stirred with harvard university economist raj chetty, one of its three

authors; and we hope to be joined by randi weingarten, president of the american federation of teachers, the second-largest teachers union. professor, how do you measure student performance over such a long period of time, some of the people in your study are in their late 20s now. and how do you determine if the teachers who made the difference. >> the way we do that is we track these students from elementary school so we know what teachers they had in elementary skl and then we look at how they're doing as a duments. and the way we measure teacher quality is look at the average impact that teachers had on the students' test scores, the students that they were teaching. so for example a teacher whoistically raised her student's test scores year after year we call that teacher a high value added teacher. and a teacher who didn't do as well might be an average or low value added teacher. so the question we then ask is suppose you, by chance, were assigned to a high value added teacher when you were in fourth grade and i

was less lucky and only got an average value added teacher. are we doing differently as adults. are we more likely to go to college if we have a higher value added teacher. are you more likely to earn a higher salary and so on. and we find a remarkable impact. students who were assigned to high value added teachers earn more. they are more likely to go to college. they are less likely to have a teenage pregnancy and they do better on a number of dimensions that we're able to study. >> suarez: but there are so many variable os involved. how do you exclude things like the level of education in the home, the overall achievement of an individual school, what the individual student was doing before they got to that grade and got a standardized test. >> that's an excellent question. in fact, what makes this topic so difficult to study has been a real challenge in this area as in the social sciences more generally. so our approach in this study is to use sort of

random variation, in the set of teachers who happen to be around when you arrive if a school. so let me give an example. suppose, ray, that you are a-year-older than me and we both are in the same school and you or arrive in fourth grade there 1995 when mrs. smith who let's say is a high value added teacher is toching that grade in that school. and you had mrs. smith and you end up doing well and scoring high on your test. now i come along in 1996 and let's says mr. smith has gone on maternity leave or is not around for some reason, there is a lot of teachers switching athat we see. now i don't have the luck to be out taught by mrs. smith. and so what we find in the data is that such students are, they score lower and then they don't do as well as adults. so the type of variation that i'm describing there is basically random. because the students who happen to get the grade four when a good teacher was there versus you know the next year when a good

teacher might not be there, that is essentially random there are-- the students are comparable and you are able to control for the factors that you mentioned. >> suarez: if we take your study at face value, do its conclusions risk flattening, simplifying what it is that makes a good teacher? limiting it to achievement on standardized tests? >> i think the main message of our study is that standardized test score impacts can be a useful input into evaluating teachers. but by no means are we saying that test scores are the end all and be all of how teachers should be evaluated. we think that they're one aspect of what should factor into the formula. one would also want to use things like principles evaluation or maybe even student a valuation or other measures of teacher quality. but i think there is some useful data here that could be very useful in improve og teacher quality. >> suarez: unfortunately randy weingarten of the aft is stuck in the new york city traffic, always an

occupational hazard this time of day but one thing teacher unions have been keeping an eye on is school systems attempts to pay for performance, to try to create a formula around their students' achievement that would reward them with cash. after your study is that justified? do you think? >> i think teachers who are high value added and are raising test scores are having tremendous benefits for their students. so for example a teacher whose in the top five percent, an excellent teacher, we call kate generates about 250,000 or more of additional earnings for their students over their lives in a single classroom of about 28 students. now i think it makes sense to try to reward teachers who are doing extremely well. they are providing a great service to the economy. i think it's important to recognize teachers who are having such great impacts. whether the best policy to raise teacher value added is merit pay or better teacher training or some other sort of tool is less clear. >> you know, a lot of the

schools with the worst performance in national standardized tests are also schools in poor neighborhoods where you also have high teacher turnover. if you identify high value added teachers as you call them how do you get them to stay in a school that needs a lot of help. >> that's a gate question. high turnover sin deed a problem because one of the things we see in the data is that teachers value added grows as they become more experienced. so the first time a teacher is teaching it's quite natural they're learning on the job and they don't do quite as well as after they have a few years of experience so in these lower income neighborhoods where you have a lot of teacher turnover that's a further reason that those children are not getting as great opportunities as we think they should be. how you reduce turnover i think, paying teachers bonuses, especially if they are doing very well, possibly increasing teacher salaries, providing more support so that the classroom environment in which they're teaching is more constructive, easier to

teach in. i think all of these things could potentially be very helpful. >> could it also be concluded from your study that it ought to be easier to fire ineffective teachers and i'm really sorry the union leader isn't here with us right now when i'm asking this question, but is that part of your conclusion? >> yex, i think, you know, let me make an analogy here. suppose you are managing a baseball team, say the boston red sox and you're trying to do as well as you can. you have players with different batting averages. one approach you might take is to bring the hitting coach out and try to raise the batting averages of the players you have. but i think it also makes a lot of sense and this will make sense to sports fans that on occasion you might decide to let some of the players with lower batting averages go and try to get somebody else who might do better. so i think it makes sense to use a combination of those tools. here i think the stakes are even much bigger. we're talking about the future of our children rather than winning a baseball game soichlt think it does make sense to consider those policies seriously. >> professor chetty, thanks for joining us.

>> thank you, my pleasure. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day: the unemployment rate dropped to its lowest rate in almost three years, and employers added 200,000 jobs in december. republican presidential contenders headed into a busy weekend of campaigning in new hampshire ahead of next tuesday's primary. and in syria, at least 25 people died when an explosion rocked a busy intersection in central damascus. there's more from gwen in new hampshire online. hari sreenivasan explains. hari. >> sreenivasan: gwen's take is about the different campaign tactics employed by different candidates. that's on "the rundown." on the new jobs numbers, we have an interactive graphic with the latest data. plus, find paul's own measure of unemployment called the solman scale on his "making sense" page. and on "art beat," jeff talks to writer joan didion about her latest book "blue nights," which explores the death of her only child. all that and more is on our web site, newshour.pbs.org.

judy. >> woodruff: and that's the newshour for tonight. on monday, we'll look ahead to tuesday's primary in new hampshire, and at the supreme court arguments over redistricting in texas. i'm judy woodruff. >> brown: and i'm jeffrey brown. "washington week" can be seen later this evening on most pbs stations. we'll see you online, and again here monday evening. have a nice weekend. thank you and good night. major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.

>> and by the bill and melinda gates foundation. dedicated to the idea that all people deserve the chance to live a healthy productive life. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions and foundations. and... >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by macneil/lehrer productions captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

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