Economic Recovery Slows Down
The latest Labor Department report on employment suggests that the economic recovery is slowing down:
The U.S. economy created a modest 83,000 private sector jobs in June, adding to concern that the economic recovery is tepid at best and highlighting the political danger to President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats heading into a tightly contested midterm election cycle in which control of the House and perhaps the Senate are at stake.
The unemployment rate ticked down slightly from 9.7 percent to 9.5 percent.
The president, in comments after release of the figures, chose to highlight "the sixth-straight month of job growth in the private sector" and the nearly "600,000 jobs created this year," a "stark turnaround," he added, from the massive monthly losses during the recession.
"Make no mistake — we are headed in the right direction," he said, "but we're not headed there fast enough for a lot of Americans and not fast enough for me either."
House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said the numbers are a "disappointment for every family and every small business who heard President Obama declare just weeks ago that our economy is ‘getting stronger by the day.’ The writing is on the wall for President Obama’s ‘stimulus’ policies and everyone — taxpayers, economists and the rest of the world –— sees it but him."
The Labor Department reported an overall decline of 125,000 nonfarm payroll employment but the number was dragged down by a 225,000 decline in temporary Census jobs. The underlying private sector jobs created represent an increase from the 41,000 positions generated in May but a significant drop from the peak recovery job creation figure of 218,000 new jobs in April.
