For its jobs figure, the Labor Department surveys employers on how many people they had on their payrolls during the pay period that includes the 12th of the month; anybody who worked at all during that period in February was counted as employed. That includes federal workers still in their probationary period after getting hired or promoted that the White House began laying off around Feb. 13. It also includes the roughly 75,000 people who accepted the White House's "deferred resignation" offer, where the White House said they don't have to work but can still get paid through the end of September.

Belt-tightening by government workers who have lost their jobs, or fear losing them, has begun to show up. Card spending by Bank of America customers in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area has slowed, according to an analysis conducted by the bank's economists.