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Wall Street Journal: Obama's 'Economic Pep Talk' Was 'Rudely Interrupted' by Friday's Jobs Report
A Jobs sign is seen on the US Chamber of Commerce Building in Washington, DC, on August 2, 2013. The US unemployment rate fell to a four-year low of 7.4 percent in July as the economy added 162,000 jobs, the Labor Department said Friday in a weaker-than-expected report. Credit: AFP/Getty Images

Wall Street Journal: Obama's 'Economic Pep Talk' Was 'Rudely Interrupted' by Friday's Jobs Report

Friday's jobs announcement marked the lowest monthly performance since 2010, but Obama seems optimistic.

After it was made public Friday that only 38,000 new jobs were added to the U.S. economy in May, the editorial team at the Wall Street Journal took the opportunity to attack President Barack Obama for expressing optimism during such a troubling time.

“President Obama’s election-year campaign to make Americans feel great about the economy again was rudely interrupted Friday by the reality of the job market," the Journal reported Friday.

AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster

The announcement marked the lowest monthly performance since 2010, a cause of concern for many who noted that the economy barely grew in the first three months of the fiscal year.

“The shockingly low payrolls gain in May provides further evidence that the economy is showing clear signs of slowing,” Laura Rosner, an economist at BNP Paribas, told the Associated Press Friday.

Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump called Friday's announcement, which came just days after President Obama touted his economic record in Elkhart, Indiana, a “terrible jobs report” and a “bombshell” on Twitter.

At the same time, the unemployment rate fell from 5 percent to 4.7 percent, the Labor Department announced, the lowest it's been since November 2007. But the reason for the drop is problematic: Nearly a half-million jobless Americans stopped looking for work and so were no longer officially counted as unemployed.

The Journal noted the "significant decline" in job creation in the last three months, which dropped from a 200,000-plus average to only about 116,000.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Which brings us back to Mr. Obama’s magical economic recovery tour … He knows his legacy is on the line in November, and he can read the polls that show that Donald Trump is leading Hillary Clinton on who would do better for the economy ...

Thus his economic pep talk and attempt to rebut what he called 'myths' spread by Republicans and the 'conservative' media about slow growth and mediocre incomes. But he doesn’t need to blame us. His bigger beef is with Mrs. Clinton and Bernie Sanders, who have spent the last year deploring the economic condition of America’s middle class. And as of Friday with his own Labor Department, which reported facts that are hard even for this President to spin away.

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