The U.S. economy added 288,000 jobs in June, resulting in a drop in the unemployment rate to 6.1%, the Department of Labor said Thursday. The jobless rate is the lowest rate since September 2008. June also marked five straight months of job growth above 200,000.
With upward revisions in the jobs numbers in April and May, over the past twelve months, private employment has risen by a total of more than 2.4 million. During the first half of this year, 1.4 million total nonfarm jobs have been added, the most in any first half since 1999.
Commenting on the strong jobs numbers, President Obama, speaking at 1776, a tech startup in Washington, D.C., had this to say:
“We just got a jobs report today showing that we’ve now seen the fastest job growth in the United States in the first half of the year since 1999,” said President Obama, speaking at 1776, a tech startup in Washington, D.C. “So this is also the first time we’ve seen five consecutive months of job growth over 200,000 since 1999. And we’ve seen the quickest drop in unemployment in 30 years.”
“We’ve now seen almost 10 million jobs created over the course of the last 52 months. And it should be a useful reminder to people all across the country that given where we started back in 2008, we have made enormous strides, thanks to the incredible hard work of the American people and American businesses that have been out there competing, getting smarter, getting more effective. And it’s making a difference all across the country.”
“Now, what we also know is, as much progress as has been made, there are still folks out there who are struggling. We still have not seen as much increase in income and wages as we’d like to see. A lot of folks are still digging themselves out of challenges that arose out of the Great Recession.”
Mr. Obama also made reference to other policy initiatives that can be implemented to speed job growth and incomes for working families. He cited increasing the minimum wage, equal pay for equal work and access to high-quality and affordable childcare.
“And so there are just a series of specific things we can do right now — many of them I’m doing on my own because we have the administrative authority to do it, but some of them we can’t do without Congress. We can’t fix a broken immigration system that would allow incredibly talented folks who want to start businesses here and create jobs here in the United States, would allow them to stay and make those investments. That’s something that we need Congress to help us on. We’re not going to be able to fund the Highway Trust Fund and to ramp up our investment in infrastructure without acts of Congress.”
Immediately following the news of the jobs numbers, the Dow crossed 17,000 for the first time ever and closed at 7,068.26, as trading ended early on the eve of the Independence Day holiday.
