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WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – A new jobs report is surprising economists in a good way. On Friday, the Labor Department put out new figures showing the U.S. economy added more than 300,000 jobs in March.

Jon Donenberg with the National Economic Council says the White House is happy with those numbers.

“We have built a recovery because of this president’s policies,” Donenberg said.

Bankrate analyst Mark Hamrick says the new economic figures are part of a positive ongoing trend.

“The current momentum of the U.S. economy is quite solid,” Hamrick said. “Economists and many other people have been expecting both the economy and the job market to cool substantially. It just isn’t really happening.”

The March report also showed low unemployment and wage gains that are outpacing inflation.

But political science professor Todd Belt says the important political question revolves around what people feel.

“Will people’s impressions of the economy match the objective indicators?” Belt asked.

He expects that to have a major impact on the upcoming presidential election.

“What we know about job approval of the president is it is highly correlated to economic indicators,” Belt said.

Recently, inflation has been trending down but persistent. Hamrick says people are still adjusting to the higher costs.

“We would expect that normalization to continue to take some time because we have not been relieved of the burden of high prices,” Hamrick said.

Though, the president’s team says consumer spending is up.

“That is an indication that families are feeling good about the direction that things are going. Of course, there is still work to do,” Donenberg said.

And the election is still 7 months away.

“It’s really going to matter what people are feeling at the time of the election,” Belt said.