A still-struggling economy thrust itself into the presidential race Friday after the administration announced slower-than-average job growth and the unemployment rate ticked up in September — and President Obama got much of the blame.
GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign said the numbers are the latest in a catalog of economic failures for Mr. Obama, who’s overseen the slowest recovery in modern history.
“The ’recovery’ is seven years of policy failure on virtually every significant metric — growth, income, trade and jobs,” said David Malpass, a senior adviser to the campaign.
The economy added 156,000 jobs in September, or less than analysts had predicted. The Labor Department also revised July and August numbers down slightly.
Still, the participation rate — the percentage of those in the workforce — rose to 62.9 percent and wage earnings also inched up.
The White House seized on that as more evidence that gains are to be found in an otherwise sluggish jobs market.
“So far in 2016, hourly earnings for private-sector workers have increased at an annual rate of 2.8 percent, much faster than the pace of inflation,” Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said.
On Capitol Hill, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said Democrats are fighting to help struggling Americans by putting more money to their pockets. She said Democrats wanted to raise the minimum wage and canceling student debt, but said the GOP stood in the way.
“Republicans advanced giveaways for Wall Street but blocked vital action to grow the paychecks of American workers,” she said.
The Congressional Research Service, in a report in July, said the current economic recovery is historically bad.
“The current economic recovery is the slowest recovery seen in the post-WWII period era,” the CRS said.
Real Gross Domestic Product has grown at just 2 percent on average during this expansion, compared to an average of 4.3 percent for other postwar recoveries, the analysts said.
• Stephen Dinan can be reached at sdinan@washingtontimes.com.
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