President Obama to Congress: Economy's Getting Stronger. Don't 'Muck It Up'
Feb. 3, 2012
(Reuters) - Jobs figures released on Friday show the U.S. economy is growing and healing, President Barack Obama said, calling on Congress to pass a payroll tax extension and avoid sabotaging the recovery.
"The economy is growing stronger. The recovery is speeding up. And we've got to do everything in our power to keep it going," he told an audience in a northern Virginia firehouse.
"Now is not the time for self-inflicted wounds to our economy," Obama said, describing his message to Congress as: "Do not slow down the recovery that we're on. Don't muck it up."
read: http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/03/us-usa-obama-economy-idUSTRE8121AJ20120203
REUTERS/Larry Downing
= new reply since forum marked as read
Alan Krueger
Today’s employment report provides further evidence that the economy is continuing to heal from the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. It is critical that we continue the economic policies that are helping us to dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the recession that began at the end of 2007. Most importantly, we need to extend the payroll tax cut and continue to provide emergency unemployment benefits through the end of this year, and take the additional steps that President Obama proposed in his State of the Union address to create an economy built to last.
The unemployment rate fell 0.2 percentage point to 8.3%, from a high of 10% in October 2009. The drop in unemployment over the month was entirely due to employment growth, as the labor force participation rate remained constant, once new population weights are taken into account. The unemployment rate has fallen by 0.8 percentage point in the last 12 months. Private sector payrolls increased by 257,000 jobs and overall payroll employment rose by 243,000 jobs in January. Despite adverse shocks that have created headwinds for economic growth, the economy has added private sector jobs for 23 straight months, for a total of 3.7 million payroll jobs over that period. In the last 12 months, 2.2 million private sector jobs were added on net. Nonetheless, we need faster growth to put more Americans back to work.
Sectors with net job increases in December included professional and business services (+70,000), manufacturing (+50,000), leisure and hospitality (+44,000), health care and social assistance (+29,700), and construction (+21,000). Government lost 14,000 jobs.
The monthly employment and unemployment numbers can be volatile, and employment estimates can be subject to substantial revision. Therefore, as the Administration always stresses, it is important not to read too much into any one monthly report; nevertheless, the trend in job market indicators over recent months is an encouraging sign.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/02/03/employment-situation-january
Oh, he said MUCK. My bad.
"Muck" is not in Rahm's vocabulary.
