Outgoing President Barack Obama is leaving with the last data record of employment of 156,000 jobs added in December. The number added did not meet the 180,000 jobs that economists expected. Amid this disappointment, there is the brighter side as wage increased for workers.
The Washington Post noted that December 2016 marked the straight 75 months of job growth that the State had experience under the Obama administration. This record made by Obama was considered as the best streak record since 1939. More so, Obama took the office in the year 2009 during the Great Recession.
In the recession of 2009, the recorded data was a 7.8 percent of the unemployment rate. But, at the end of 2016, Obama managed to slash that down to 4.7 percent, the second-largest unemployment rate drop in the U.S.
Moreover, December’s wage increase of 2.9 percent also hit the most solid increase wage since the recession on 2009, as CNN reported.
Meanwhile, some Republicans had a different view on the last job report of the Obama administration. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-Texas, stated, “While I welcome some of the bright spots in this report, it doesn't change the fact that 2016's job creation was the worst we've seen in years." He added, "President-elect Trump has reignited the American people's confidence in our economy because they understand that growing our economy is his first priority."
Of course, President-Elect Donald Trump promises that his platform would center on more American jobs and to bringing manufacturing jobs from other countries. Yet, there are still problems to overcome by the upcoming Trump administration.
Senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, Elise Gould, stated that some people will continue to lag behind the State’s growth. What she meant were the people who lack skills and have less education attained. The unemployment rate among African Americans and Hispanics is still the pre-recession low.
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