‘The American Economy Is Making Real Progress’: Obama Touts Latest Jobs Report

"Last month, America’s businesses created more than 300,000 jobs. This keeps a pace so far this year that we have not seen since the 1990s. So far, this year, over the first 11 months of 2014, our economy has created 2.65 million jobs. That's more than in any entire year since the 1990s. Our businesses have now created 10.9 million jobs over the past 57 months in a row and that’s the longest streak of private sector job growth on record. We also know that the pick up in pace of job growth this year has been in industries with higher wages and overall, wages are rising. A very welcome sign for millions of Americans. 

So we’ve got an opportunity to keep up this progress if Congress is willing to keep our government open, avoid self-inflicted wounds, and work together to invest in the things that support faster job growth in high paying jobs. That means exports, infrastructure, streamlining our tax code, immigration reform, giving minimum wage workers a raise. It’s been a long road to recovery from the worst economic crisis in generations and we still have a lot more work to do to make sure that hard working American’s wages are growing faster. But the United States continues to outpace most of the world. Over the last four years, we put more people back to work than Europe, Japan, and all other industrialized advanced countries combined. We’re going keep at it until every single American who is willing and able to work can find not just any job, but a job that pays a decent wage and allows them to support their families.

But it’s worth us, every once in a while, reflecting on the fact that the American economy is making real progress. If we can continue in this projectory, if we can continue to grow robustly and if we make sure that those companies who are seeing profits that are higher than any time in the last 60 years, that they’re also making sure their workers are sharing in that growth, then, you know, we can get a virtuous cycle that will really make a difference and be a critical component of strengthening our national security because national security starts with strong economy."