(CNSNews.com) - Employers added 103,000 jobs in September, nearly half of them due to the rehiring of 45,000 striking Verizon employees. But the September job growth was not enough to budge the jobless rate, which stands at 9.1 percent for the third straight month.

Employers have added an average of only 72,000 jobs in the past five months.

House Speaker John Boehner, in a statement released Friday morning, said the American people want to know where the jobs are: "These sad numbers show that more Washington spending, threats of higher taxes on small businesses, and excessive government regulations don’t create a healthy environment for job growth"...

Job growth picked up to 103,000 last month, defying fears of a gathering slowdown in the economy, while the unemployment rate held steady at 9.1 percent, the Labor Department reported Friday morning.

The unexpectedly solid increase in jobs included 45,000 Verizon workers returning from strike. But the department also said that 99,000 more jobs were created in July and August than previously reported, suggesting that the economy has been performing better than thought on Wall Street and Main Street.

“I’m excited that we got a decent employment number — not great — but OK, given the challenges we face,” said John Silvia, chief economist at Wells Fargo Securities.

Barack Obama continued his sales blitz across the country Tuesday, touting his jobs plan and scolding Republicans in Congress more than once to “pass this bill.”

There was only one rather embarrassing problem: his $447 billion proposal was blocked in the Senate—by his fellow Democrats.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid stepped up to stop a vote in the Senate on the president’s measure, which had been requested by an obviously satisfied Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, because both men knew what the president cannot or will not admit— that he does not have enough votes within his own party, let alone from Republicans, to pass the bill he’s been hyping for weeks.

(CNSNews.com) – House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said that President Barack Obama’s $447-billion American Jobs Act was dead, adding that Obama’s “all or nothing” approach would not work.

At a Capitol Hill briefing on Monday, a reporter asked Cantor whether the "jobs package as a package [was] dead?"

Cantor said, "yes," and shortly thereafter said, “It seems as if the president is in full campaign mode. The president continues to say ‘pass my bill in its entirety.’ As I’ve said from the outset, this all-or-nothing approach is just not acceptable.”

Cantor also questioned whether Obama had the votes for his jobs bill in the Democrat-controlled Senate, saying that the president had some “whipping” to do...

House Republican leaders on Friday said President Obama’s latest jobs plan includes several “areas of common agreement” — from employer tax breaks to reforming the unemployment insurance system — from which the two sides could work together to develop a plan to help kick-start the slumping economy.

The GOP leaders, in a memorandum to House Republicans, stopped short making promises that a bipartisan deal could he hammered out with the White House. Still, the memo contained a significantly softer partisan tone than a speech House Speaker John A. Boehner gave a day earlier in which he reaffirmed his party’s stance that no tax increases be included in any debt reduction plan.

“We don’t question the president’s sincerity when he says he has crafted the right prescription for economic recovery,” said the joint memo by Mr.

A majority of Americans don’t believe President Barack Obama’s $447 billion jobs plan will help lower the unemployment rate, skepticism he must overcome as he presses Congress for action and positions himself for re-election.

The downbeat assessment of the American Jobs Act reflects a growing and broad sense of dissatisfaction with the president. Americans disapprove of his handling of the economy by 62 percent to 33 percent, a Bloomberg National Poll conducted Sept. 9-12 shows. The disapproval number represents a nine point increase from six months ago.

The president’s job approval rating also stands at the lowest of his presidency — 45 percent. That rating is driven down in part by a majority of independents, 53 percent, who disapprove of his performance...

“The specific offsets that are in the package are a series of tax provisions. I think they'll be familiar to most of you because they're ideas that we have been talking about for the most part for some time.”

-- White House Director of Management and Budget Jack Lew talking about President Obama’s plan to pay for his proposal for a third stimulus package.

If House Republicans are terrorists and hostage takers for threatening to shut down the government if additional borrowing wasn’t matched with budget cuts, what does it make the Obama Democrats if they threaten a huge tax increase in the midst of a growth recession unless the president’s stimulus package is approved in its entirety?

The president last week laid out his proposal for a third stimulus. It is a smaller version of his February 2009 stimulus: a combination of temporary tax incentives, public works projects and direct aid to keep state and local government payrolls at stimulus levels.

More Americans were living in poverty in 2010 than at any time since at least the 1950s, with the overall poverty rate climbing to 15.1 -- a 6 percent jump in just one year -- according to Census figures released Tuesday.

The Census Bureau's annual report showed nearly 1-in-6 people in poverty, reflecting sustained long-term unemployment and the failure of the U.S. economy to kick into gear following a crippling recession.

The number of uninsured also edged up to 49.9 million, the highest in over two decades.

The figures cover 2010, and the jobless rate has not ticked down much since then. The unemployment rate stood at 9.1 percent in August. The report comes as President Obama tries anew to push legislation aimed at spurring job growth while providing government aid to those out of work.

According to the report, the number of people in poverty last year was 46.2 million, the largest number in the 52 years for which poverty estimates have been published.

President Obama is returning to what's becoming familiar territory to sell his $447 billion jobs plan, as he steps up pressure on Congress to pass the bill "immediately" despite early complaints from Republicans about his call to use tax hikes to pay for it.

The president on Tuesday will visit a school in Ohio, House Speaker John Boehner's home state and a critical electoral battleground. It's his third visit to Ohio this year, and his 15th as president.

The idea is to promote $25 billion in school modernization and infrastructure spending that's part of the jobs bill. The president has made no secret he plans on recruiting voters to press Congress to act on the package, at a time when lawmakers are at loggerheads over just about everything.

"We can't afford these same political games, not now," Obama said Monday. "So I want you to pick up the phone, I want you to send an e-mail, use one of those airplane sky writers, dust off the fax machine ...

He may have dropped out of the running for the presidency, but Tim Pawlenty isn't sitting on the sidelines - the former presidential candidate has endorsed Mitt Romney for president.

Pawlenty, who garnered early attention in his own presidential race but dropped out after a third-place showing in Iowa's straw poll last month, threw his weight behind former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney Monday on Fox News.

"There's one candidate in this race who's unmatched in his skills and experience and talent when it comes to turning around this economy and growing jobs, and that's Mitt Romney," Pawlenty said.