President Obama took a victory lap on the economy Friday, and cited the morning’s job news and the first unemployment rate below 5 percent in eight years as more evidence his economic policies are working.
Friday’s positive unemployment report marks 71 straight months of private-sector job growth, the longest growth period since the 1990s, Obama said. The economy added 151,000 jobs in January, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.9 percent.
“We should be proud of the progress we’ve made,” he said. “We’ve recovered since the worst recession since the 1930s and we’ve done it faster stronger and more durable than any other economy.”
He also used the occasion to take a shot at Republican policies and those Republican presidential candidates who have been “talking down” the slow economic recovery throughout the campaign.
Had the Obama administration adopted policies advocated by some Republicans, he said, “we know that we probably would have done worse.”
“We know that because a lot of European countries adopted those policies,” and their economies have not rebounded as quickly as the United States’ has, he said.
“So the evidence, facts are on our side and this jobs reports is on our side,” he said, adding that there is still more work to do to ensure that the economy continues to improve for Americans who have lost jobs and are still suffering.
“I said in my State of the Union address, the United States has the strongest, most durable economy in the world. I know that’s still inconvenient for Republican stump speeches as their doom and despair tour plays in New Hampshire,” he said.
