Obama’s Winning Streak Continues: Economy Adds 12.8 Million Jobs Over 64 Straight Months

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Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:43 pm

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And they called him a lame duck. President Obama’s economy has added 12.8 million private sector jobs over 64 straight months of job growth, extending the longest streak on record.

Thursday’s job announcement numbers put another feather in the cap of the President’s legacy, as he has now presided over 64 straight months of private sector job growth. Yes, that’s right. The Department of Labor announced that the economy added 223,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate dropped to 5.3 percent:

Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 223,000 in June, and the unemployment rate declined to 5.3 percent, the U.S.Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains occurred in professional and business services, health care, retail trade, financial activities, and in transportation and warehousing.

Insert right wing screams here as business leaders are telling Republicans that they don’t know what they are doing, after they failed to renew the Export-Import Bank’s charter.

From the administration’s Council of Economic Advisers:

The private sector has added 12.8 million jobs over 64 straight months of job growth, extending the longest streak on record. Today we learned that total nonfarm employment rose by 223,000 in June—and all those jobs came from the private sector. Although total job growth was revised down somewhat in April and May, much of the revision is attributable to lower government employment than previously estimated. On the whole, our economy has added 2.9 million new jobs over the past twelve months, near the fifteen-year high achieved in February.

Of course, as President Obama keeps saying, all is not well. Not only have we had major cuts in the public sector, thanks in large part to Republican cuts and their sequester, but Americans need more good paying jobs. Additionally, the labor force grew more slowly in June than it usually does. “Over the past sixty years, the labor force has grown by 1.8 percent in June on average before seasonal adjustment—more than three times faster than May, the next fastest month. But this June, the labor force only rose 0.4 percent.”

Betsey Stevenson, a member of the Council of Economic Advisers, said in a statement “Our economy has now added 5.6 million jobs over the past two years, the strongest two-year job growth since 2000.” But she cautioned, “But despite this progress, there is more work to do. We must continue to build on the positive trends underlying our economy by ensuring that Americans working overtime receive a fair day’s pay, opening new markets for U.S. goods and services through expanded trade, increasing investments in infrastructure, providing relief from the sequester, and raising the minimum wage.”

(Note the administration keeps pushing that trade deal among their other pushes of raising the minimum wage and paying fair overtime wages.)

Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi couldn’t help but contrast the longest stretch of private sector job growth with the Republican shutdown of the Export-Import Bank’s charter, “June’s job’s report shows our economy continuing to move in the right direction, extending the longest uninterrupted stretch of private sector job creation in our history. Yet again and again, the shutdowns and manufactured crises of the Republican Congress have put this progress at risk, costing our country jobs, weakening our economy, and undermining hard-working families.”

And noting that construction jobs are low for this month, it’s a good time to bring up the Republican failure to do anything with infrastructure like the long-term Highway and Transit Trust Fund bill.

“Earlier this week, Republicans forced the expiration of the Export-Import Bank’s charter, endangering thousands of export-reliant jobs and small businesses across America. House Republicans still have no plan for the long-term Highway and Transit Trust Fund bill needed to avert the crisis they punted to the end of this month — inaction that threatens hundreds of thousands of good paying construction jobs and critical infrastructure projects.”

Pelosi nailed the prevailing mood of the country in her last paragraph, saying in part, “Hard-working families deserve better than a Congress that shows so little interest in their jobs, their wages and their communities.”

Republicans and pundits have been clinging to the fact that employment numbers are adjusted over time and that is true. For example, the Department of Labor notes, “With these revisions, employment gains in April and May combined were 60,000 lower than previously reported. Over the past 3 months, job gains have averaged 221,000 per month.”

But 221,000 job gains per month is the Republican idea of bad news? We’ll take it. Also, before Republicans get too smug, let us not forget why those numbers were revised down — lower government employment than previously estimated. That would be the Republican contribution to the jobs numbers. They lowered them. Maybe we should be talking about that.

There is a 64 month streak of gaining private sector jobs and that hasn’t changed even after the numbers are revised. I think it’s safe to stop trolling the facts and start asking Congress why they haven’t done a thing to help Americans get better paying jobs.

President Obama is on a streak of legacy making wins, from the Supreme Court’s ruling that Obamacare is Constitutional to opening an embassy in Cuba to the new job numbers, it’s been a good few weeks for the President’s record.

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