Here’s statistical whiz Nate Silver on what Obama needs to do to improve his flagging approval ratings:

To channel my Inner Krugman: it’s a political imperative for the Democrats of the highest order to get some sort of jobs bill to Obama’s desk — the sooner and the bigger the better. Suppose you could create jobs at a price of about $40,000 per, which is higher than the figure suggested by empirical research on highly targeted jobs programs. A $200 billion bill would then create 5 million new jobs, which would reduce unemployment by about 3.3 percent (e.g. from 10.2 percent to 6.9 percent).