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Weekly Address: President Obama – Ensuring Americans Feel The Gains of a Growing Economy

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The President’s Weekly Address post is also an Open News Thread. Feel free to share other news stories in the comments.

 

From the White House – Weekly Address

In this week’s address, the President highlighted the good news in Friday’s jobs report – that American businesses added 314,000 new jobs this past month, making November the tenth month in a row that the private sector has added at least 200,000 new jobs. Even with a full month to go, 2014 has already been the best year of job creation since the 1990s. This number brings total private-sector job creation to 10.9 million over 57 consecutive months – the longest streak on record.

But even with this real, tangible evidence of our progress, there is always more that can be done. Congress needs to pass a budget and keep the government from a Christmas shutdown. We have an opportunity to work together to support the continued growth of higher-paying jobs by investing in infrastructure, reforming the business tax code, expanding markets for America’s goods and services, making common-sense reforms to the immigration system, and increasing the minimum wage.

Transcript: Weekly Address: Ensuring Americans Feel the Gains of a Growing Economy

Hi, everybody.  Just in time for the holiday season, we now have another piece of good news about the pace of our economic recovery.

Last month, our businesses created 314,000 new jobs.  And that’s not a fluke – it keeps up the solid pace of job creation we’ve seen all year long. November was the tenth month in a row we’ve added more than 200,000 jobs.  So far this year, our economy has created 2.65 million new jobs.  That’s the most of any year since the 1990s – even with a full month to go. All told, our businesses have created 10.9 million new jobs over the past 57 months. And that’s the longest streak of private-sector job creation on record.

We also know that the upswing in job growth this year has come in industries with higher wages.  Overall wages are on the rise.  And that’s some very welcome news for millions of hardworking Americans.  Because even though corporate profits and the stock market have hit all-time highs, the typical family isn’t bringing home more than they did 15 years ago.  And that still has to change.  And a vibrant jobs market gives us the opportunity to keep up this progress, and begin to undo that decades-long middle-class squeeze.

But first, we need the outgoing Congress to pass a budget and keep our government open.  A Christmas shutdown is not a good idea.  Then, when the new Congress convenes in January, we need to work together to invest in the things that support faster growth in higher-paying jobs.

Building new roads and bridges creates jobs.  Growing our exports creates jobs.  Reforming our outdated tax system and our broken immigration system creates jobs. Raising the minimum wage would benefit nearly 28 million American workers, giving them more money to spend at local businesses – and that helps those businesses create jobs.

America, we still have a lot of work to do together.  But we do have real, tangible evidence of our progress.  10.9 million new jobs.  10 million more Americans with health insurance.  Manufacturing has grown.  Our deficits have shrunk.  Our dependence on foreign oil is down.  Clean energy is up.  More young Americans are graduating from high school and earning college degrees than ever before.  Over the last four years, this country has put more people back to work than Europe, Japan, and every advanced economy combined.

The United States of America continues to outperform much of the world.  And we are going to keep it up until every American feels the gains of a growing economy where it matters most – in your own lives.

Thanks, and have a great weekend.

Bolding added.

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6 comments

  1. JanF

    That is good news for people who are not feeling the gains, as the president mentioned:

    Because even though corporate profits and the stock market have hit all-time highs, the typical family isn’t bringing home more than they did 15 years ago.  And that still has to change.  And a vibrant jobs market gives us the opportunity to keep up this progress, and begin to undo that decades-long middle-class squeeze.

  2. JanF

    From the White House

    “Ash is rightly regarded as one of our nation’s foremost national security leaders,” the President said in today’s remarks. “As a top member of our Pentagon team for the first five years of my presidency, including his two years as deputy secretary, he was at the table in the Situation Room; he was by my side navigating complex security challenges that we were confronting. I relied on his expertise, and I relied on his judgment.”

    President Obama went on to detail Carter’s “unique blend of strategic perspective and technical know-how,” and the breadth of knowledge that he has about the Department of Defense:


       As a student of history, he understands the United States — and I’m quoting him now — is “the single most [important] provider of security in the world,” and he played a key role in devising our defense strategy to advance that security.  He’s also a physicist, which means that he’s one of the few people who actually understands how many of our defense systems work.  And that has also allowed him to serve with extraordinary breadth and also depth in a whole range of work that we’ve had to do.

       In one way or another, Ash has served under 11 Secretaries of Defense.  He’s an innovator who helped create the program that has dismantled weapons of mass destruction around the world and reduced the threat of nuclear terrorism.  He’s a reformer who’s never been afraid to cancel old or inefficient weapons programs. He knows the Department of Defense inside and out — all of which means that on day one, he’s going to hit the ground running.

    Noting that the U.S. faces a number of challenges to our national security, the President made clear that as Commander-in-Chief, he will ensure our military is “second to none” — and that Carter will be critical to that effort.

    “When we talked about this job, we talked about how we’re going to have to make smart choices precisely because there are so many challenges out there,” the President said. “And we’re going to have to squeeze everything we have out of the resources that we have in order to be as effective as possible. And I can’t think of somebody who’s more qualified to do that.”

    Transcript

  3. JanF

    From TPM Five Points On The Historic Numbers In The New Health Care Spending Report

    Some truly historical trends are underway in health care spending, according to a new report (PDF) released by the federal government and published in Health Affairs this week, the result of a still slow economic recovery and the reforms of the Affordable Care Act.

    1. Spending Growth Is At Record Lows

    Health spending grew at the lowest rate on record in 2013: 3.6 percent. Per-capita growth was 2.9 percent, the lowest figure since 2009. The chart below explains which factors are contributing to health spending growth.

    2. Health Spending As A Share Of GDP Has Remained Steady

    Health spending as a percentage of gross domestic product was flat in 2013, 17.4 percent, continuing a stalling of historical trends that saw it grow consistently over the last three decades.

    From Vox The Obamacare paradox: the law looks terrible but is doing great

    (Note: The “looks terrible” part is from the media’s standpoint and mainly because of hair-on-fire reporting)

    … if you look beyond the political fights, the picture looks very different. Obamacare is, policy-wise, having a great month – maybe even the law’s best month ever.[…]

    … during the first two months of open enrollment in 2013, just 470,000 people enrolled in coverage – and those numbers included both Healthcare.gov and the 14 state-based exchanges. This time around, and only counting the Healthcare.gov shoppers, enrollment has easily surpassed that total in half the time. Much of this likely boils down to the fact that the Obama administration (and states) built health shopping websites that actually work this time.

    Enrollment is moving faster, and shoppers have more options when they turn up to buy. Health and Human Services put out a report this afternoon finding that the number of options on Healthcare.gov has increased 25 percent over the past year.

  4. louisprandtl

    of Mary Landrieu made me think Karl Rove, Koch bros, US Chamber of commerce ..are all must be diehard leftists as they are also  celebrating her loss..

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