Hours after the government announced the unemployment rate dropped below eight percent, President Obama touted the figures on the campaign trail as a sign his economic plans are working.
“This morning we found out that the unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level since I took office. More Americans entered the work force. More people are getting jobs,” Obama said Friday at a campaign stop at George Mason University in Fairfax County, Virginia.
The president said the unemployment figure “reminds us that we have still got too many of our friends and neighbors who are looking for work, and they’re two many middle-class families that are still struggling to pay the bills,” but it was clear he viewed the drop below eight percent as a reason to vote for his reelection.
“Today’s news certainly is not an excuse to try to talk down at the economy to score a few political points,” Obama said. “It is a reminder that this country has come too far to turn back now.”
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Mitt Romney, unsurprisingly, was less impressed with the new jobs numbers.
“This is not what a real recovery looks like,” he said in a statement Friday.
