The Obama Economy Sets A New Record: 63rd Consecutive Month of Private Sector Job Growth

Last updated on September 25th, 2023 at 08:43 pm

To See President Biden's 5 Best Jokes At The White House Correspondents Dinner visit The Daily.

May marks a new record for President Obama’s private sector job growth record, with the private sector adding 12.6 million jobs over 63 straight months of job growth. The Department of Labor announced Friday morning that the economy added 280,000 jobs. With businesses adding 262,000 jobs, this represents the 63rd consecutive month of private sector job growth.

Jason Furman, Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, broke down the employment situation in May:

The private sector has added 12.6 million jobs over 63 straight months of job growth, extending the longest streak on record. Today we learned that private-sector employment rose by 262,000 in May. Our businesses created more than 200,000 jobs in fourteen of the past fifteen months—the first time that has happened since 1995. On the whole, our economy has added 3.1 million new jobs over the past twelve months, just off the fifteen-year high achieved in February.

Other key points in Furman’s report were: “1. Manufacturing employment is up strongly as compared with the previous business cycle, while construction employment still has not recovered.” 2. “More highly educated Americans participate more in the labor force at all ages, and, compared with less educated workers, their participation does not drop off until much older ages.” 3. “The distribution of job growth across industries in May was highly consistent with the pattern observed over the past year.” 4. “The majority of industries experienced stronger job growth in May than they have on average over the past year.” (Read details here.)

Democratic House Leader Nancy Pelosi remarked in a statement that she was pleased with the longest uninterrupted stretch of private sector job growth, but the “Republicans’ constant culture of crisis continues to cast a shadow over our economy and the future of hard-working families.

Pelosi urged Republicans to get to work, especially noting that the Highway and Transit Trust fund will be expiring in the middle of summer construction season but Republicans still have no plans to act and are endangering 700,000 jobs across the country, “With only 12 legislative days remaining before the Export-Import Bank’s charter expires, Republicans still refuse to reauthorize the bank that supports thousands of American businesses and hundreds of thousands of American jobs. Time is also swiftly running out before the Highway and Transit Trust fund expires in the middle of the summer construction season, but Republicans still have no plan to act – endangering thousands of vital construction projects and nearly 700,000 jobs across the country.”

Jason Furman summed it up with a statement making the case for raising the minimum wage and getting rid of the sequester, among other administration pushes::

The economy added 280,000 jobs in May—the strongest month of the year so far—as wages continued to rise and the participation rate ticked upward. We have now added 5.6 million jobs over the past two years, the best two-year job growth since 2000. Although the job market has made considerable progress throughout this recovery, challenges remain for our economy and there is more work to do. The President is committed to extending the positive underlying trends through a comprehensive agenda to boost employment and wages for the middle class, including opening new markets for U.S. goods and services through expanded trade, increasing investments in infrastructure, providing relief from the sequester, and raising the minimum wage.

President Obama, the alleged “socialist” president, has presided over the longest uninterrupted stretch of private sector job growth on record. Private sector.

Meanwhile, back in Congress, Republicans can’t even extend or pass the most basic of legislation let alone take care of the people with any attempt to create decent jobs.

Sarah Jones

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.

Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

Connect with Sarah on Post,  Mastodon @PoliticusSarah@Journa.Host, & Twitter.