Setting expectations for May job numbers...

Vice President Biden is already crowing about what he expects to be a good jobs report in May.

But some perspective may be helpful before reporting the so-called positive news.

That's a headline in The Hill, one of DC's primary dailys on Capitol Hill.

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Zandi expects that only 150,000 of the jobs created in May will come from the private sector, while 425,000 new jobs are sparked by the once-a-decade census.

Those jobs are temporary ones that will disappear as the Census completes the process of collecting data from people who did not mail in their forms.

In fact, hiring for the Census probably peaked in the first week of May, when 585,729 temporary workers were on the Census payroll, according to the agency’s figures.

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The economy needs to add roughly 100,000 jobs every month in order to create enough jobs to accommodate population growth.

During the recession, millions of people dropped out of the workforce and quit looking for jobs.

As they return, the economy will need to create even more jobs to accommodate all of the people looking for work.

And this is why we always discussed the U-16 unemployment numbers to gauge underemployment and those outside of the workforce. Until that number shrinks from the massive 17% it sits at now, and without a more significant rate of growth, the unemployment rate will either stagnate or increase over time.

But later this month when the May numbers come out, Democrats will be crowing. For temporary government jobs.