Jobapalooza

October and November job gains revised upward 70K and a 103K job gain in December dropped the unemployment rate to 9.4% last month, but of course Helicopter Ben will keep his hands on the throttle.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke speaks on the economic outlook before the Senate Budget Committee at 9:30 a.m.

Analysts say the Fed's focus is on unemployment and expect it to complete the bond-buying plan.

"Gains in payrolls won't be enough to spark a change in Fed policy until the gains either accumulate for many, many months or are accompanied by gains in inflation expectations," said Tony Crescenzi, a strategist at bond fund PIMCO.

The economy usually needs to create at least 125,000 jobs a month to keep the unemployment rate from rising, but a faster pace might be needed now since so many discouraged workers are sitting on the sidelines. As job growth picks up, these workers could re-enter the labor force, keeping upward pressure on the jobless rate.

Employment gains in December were led by the private services sector, which saw payrolls rising 115,000 after gaining 84,000 in November. Retail jobs increased 12,000 after a surprise 19,400 slump in November when retailers reported their best sales in years.

Temporary hiring, seen as a harbinger of permanent employment, increased 15,900 after 31,100 in November.

The U-6 number is down to 16.7%, and we're headed in the right direction, but that just means we're breaking even instead of losing jobs.  We'll need a almost a decade of 250K job growth months just to get back to 2007 employment highs, let alone to improve on them.