Jobs & President Obama: A Close Look At His Record
Wall Street and Main Street are focused on the July jobs report. The White House is laser-focused too on seeing the jobs number go up. Since the labor market bottomed in 2010, the economy has added more than 6 million jobs, that's still the slowest job recovery after a recession since WWII. The unemployment rate is stuck well above 7%.
Heidi Moore, U.S. finance and economics editor for The Guardian, tells The Daily Ticker that President Obama's economic record over the past four years is pretty mixed.
Related: $2 Trillion Shadow Economy Not Counted in Jobs Numbers
On the minimum wage, Moore notes he pushed for increasing it to $9 in the state of the union, "but dropped it as immigration reform came to the forefront of the legislative agenda."
"Corporate America" has proved an even tougher test for the president. Moore says: "Some of the things that he said during the campaign... about how corporate America was squandering its profits and not helping the economy, alot of those very sensitive business executives took that to heart. It hurt their feelings." Moore contends Obama needs to offer some incentives and real actions "to convince them to work" with him.
Related: Why College Grads Get Stuck With Lousy Jobs
On the deficit, Obama's record looks better. Moore gives him a little credit because it has "shrunk dramatically – to around $489 billion, compared to $720 billion at the same time last year – and, according to some accounts, is even skating on the edge of a surplus."
Watch the above video to see why Moore thinks Obama could use some of the success around the deficit to jumpstart a real economic recovery.
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