Small Business News You Can Use (4/23)

Credit requirements for home loans have remained very restrictive even as banks are offering credit cards and car loans to riskier borrowers. This has been pretty well-documented, but until now, nobody had actually crunched the numbers to figure out just how good your credit needs to be if you want to buy a house or refinance your existing mortgage. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Friday that President Obama’s 2013 budget will hurt the economy in the long term, arguing the larger deficits it would produce would reduce the amount of capital available to businesses. Idaho’s seasonally adjusted March unemployment rate dropped below 8 percent for the first time in 2 ½ years as more Idahoans found work than during any other month since October 2006. Fewer U.S. states reported job gains last month, reflecting a slower pace of hiring nationwide. The Labor Department says that 29 states reported job gains in March, while 20 states lost jobs. That's worse than February, when 42 states added jobs.