So-called “lame-duck President Barack Obama,” despondingly off of having lost majority seats in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in what some are calling a “shellacking,” can still boast new, albeit, relatively small-time accomplishments. His newest victory comes by way of the most recently released employment growth figures.
The U.S. Department of Labor reported on Friday that the unemployment rate fell to a six-year low of 5.8 percent. In all, a reported 214,000 jobs were added to the economy during the month of October, just a bit lower than the 231,000 projected by economists needed to keep the still stagnate economy on course.
Before a much-hyped meeting with what more or less constitutes the entire Congress, it’s almost a given that Obama would be looking to bolster his position with his adversaries given the news released before the day’s high-stakes showdown.
“This is the strongest jobs growth we have seen since the 1990’s,” the President boasted pre-meeting. Obama’s glass still half-full, would-be table-setting comes in the wake of the Republicans complete dominance in Tuesday’s mid-term elections where the GOP took unwavering control of the executive branch.
The October job growth was most pronounced in the service and retail sectors and in the health care field. The number of working Americans now sits at 59.2 percent, the highest level since July 2009. It is also noted in the report that the U.S. economy climbed at its quickest pace in the last six months since since 2003.
Jason Furman, chairman of the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers tells the Washington Post that the 56 straight months of job growth is, “the longest streak on record.” He further notes that private employment has grown by 2.6 million over the last year.
Since that reckoning, that terrain has remained uneasy, with Obama threatening to still take executive order on several fronts, and GOP leaders warning to do so would be “playing with fire.”
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