OPINION:
When President Barack Obama took office in 2009, a record 80,529,000 Americans were not in the labor force. In December — the final jobs report of Mr. Obama’s presidency — that number grew to 95,102,000, according to the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But, by all means, let’s celebrate Mr. Obama’s lowering the unemployment rate and record of job creation while in office.
In an interview with a Chicago reporter on Thursday, Mr. Obama said he has done “an enormous amount” to create greater economic opportunity for Americans, according to a CNS News report.
“I took an economy that was about to go into a Great Depression, and we’ve now had a little over six years of straight economic job growth, an unemployment rate that’s down below 5 percent, and incomes that have gone up and poverty that has gone down,” he said.
If that’s the case, then why are more people over the age of 16 no longer even looking for work than ever before?
This is where the president’s rhetoric doesn’t match his results. There’s a reason why the Rust Belt — and Mr. Obama’s own voters — chose to vote for President-elect Donald Trump in November. It was his promise to create 25 million new American jobs.
It will be up to Mr. Trump to deliver on these jobs, and the prime indicator of that will be those who come off the sidelines and start looking for work.
With Macy’s announcement that it will cut 10,000 employees nationwide this week, and with the American economy creating fewer jobs in December than estimated by economists, that could be a tall order.
It’s the economy that Mr. Trump will be inheriting from Mr. Obama — and by no means is it on the right track.
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