Have Businesses Learned (Finally) to Ignore Washington?

WASHINGTON, DC-There was plenty to like about the Labor Department's unemployment reportreleased on Friday, relatively speaking. The economy added 236,000 jobs in February, the biggest one-month gain since last November. The unemployment rate fell to 7.7%, the lowest level since December 2008. In addition, jobs were added across a broad range of industries, from manufacturing to business services to -- and this is welcome news to the commercial real estate industry -- construction. In the case of the latter, employment increased by 48,000, topping a number of respectable monthly gains.

Indeed housing is becoming, if not the darling child, then at least not the black sheep of the economy. As Auction.com research economist Chris Muoio, observed: "it appears housing and construction have fully shifted into growth drivers, potentially aiding the housing bust markets that were so dependent on these sectors before the recession," he says. Also, he pointed out, furniture and home furnishings stores and furniture manufacturing saw strong growth and increasing momentum as well.

It was February's increase in construction employment that prompted Doug Duncan, chief economist at Fannie Mae, to declare that the housing recovery will continue to gather strength this year "despite overall seesaw economic growth."

Perhaps most notable of Duncan's comments, though, was this observation: "Despite considerable uncertainty stemming from the fiscal front, businesses have shrugged it off."

Indeed perhaps the best news of all from February's report is that it appears that Wall Street and Main Street both seem to have learned to filter out the drama emanating from Washington and pay attention to other metrics as they make their business decisions. To give a few other examples – the Dow Jones industrial average is hitting all-time high; there is a pick up in consumer spending; household wealth appears to have reached pre-recession levels; most of the nation's banks passed the Federal Reserve's stress testing.

"February's employment numbers suggest that the economy may be back on a path to sustainable growth despite the headwinds related to government inaction," Scott Homa, research director with Jones Lang LaSalle, tells GlobeSt.com.

Even the Washington DC area economy is doing relatively well – the one market that seemed doomed to suffer under Washington dysfunction. For all the talk, the Metro DC economy has shown few signs of distress thus far," Homa says. "Job growth has been positive in Metro DC for 33 consecutive months and our unemployment rate of 5.2% is well below the national average."

In fact, he notes that Metro DC's underlying economic fundamentals continue to outperform some markets that have appeared hotter to investors lately, such as San Francisco and Houston, which have unemployment rates of 6.2% and 6%, respectively.