Washington, February 03: US President Barack Obama called Friday’s jobs report a sign the US economy is on the rebound. His prospects for re-election may depend on it.
Improving numbers: US President Barack Obama waves to supporters at Shaker Heights High School, Ohio on 4 January. Photo: Tony Dejak/AP
The drop in the unemployment rate in December to 8.5%, a three-year low, showed the job market gaining momentum heading into a presidential election campaign that will be shaped by the state of the economy.
The labour department figures cap four months of declines in the unemployment rate and six consecutive months of jobs gains of 100,000 or more. Employers expanded payrolls by 200,000 in December, exceeding a median estimate of 155,000 in a Bloomberg survey. For all of 2011, 1.64 million positions were created, the most since 2006, after a 940,000 increase in 2010.
“This can make a difference for Obama if it persists into the spring,” said Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll in Princeton, New Jersey. “It’s the sense of direction in the economy that matters more than the numbers.”
After the longest period of unemployment above 8% since the Great Depression, the economy is the focal point of the 2012 campaign; with voters consistently telling pollsters it is the top issue for them.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and other Republican candidates have cast Obama as an ineffective steward of the economy and his policies, such as the 2009 stimulus, as failures.
Obama has pointed to progress on jobs and the challenge of confronting the worst recession in seven decades, while arguing that Republicans would return to the policies of President George W. Bush that preceded the 2008 collapse of financial markets.
Courtesy: livemint