Jobless rate falls to 4-year low, a boost for Obama
Source: Agencies |
October 6, 2012, Saturday
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A strong US jobs report gave President Barack Obama an upbeat end to a startling week for both campaigns, while Republican challenger Mitt Romney finally addressed his secretly taped disparaging remarks about the 47 percent of Americans who don't pay federal income taxes, calling his words "just completely wrong."
The government's new jobs report yesterday showed that the unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent last month, dropping below 8 percent for the first time in nearly four years. It's now at the level it was when Obama took office. Unemployment had been at 8.1 percent.
The report broke an important psychological barrier before the November 6 election. No US president has been re-elected with unemployment above 8 percent since the Great Depression.
The report also had the potential to swing momentum back to Obama after he suffered through a weak first debate against Romney on Wednesday night.
Romney said shortly after the jobs report that 7.8 unemployment "is not what a real recovery looks like."
The final monthly jobs report before the election will come just days before November 6.
The new report quickly overran Romney's comments on his remarks about the "47 percent."
His campaign had been hit hard by the secretly taped remarks that emerged last month, in which he said he couldn't convince nearly half the country to "take personal responsibility" for their lives. He slipped behind Obama in some of the key battleground states that will decide the election as people again worried that the multimillionaire Romney was out of touch with average Americans.
But Romney's assertive debate performance against a tired-seeming Obama rallied Republicans again to his side.
Obama notably did not mention Romney's "47 percent" comment during the debate, but Romney brought it up in a Fox News interview on Thursday night, after a day of rallying conservative activists with his vision of his own inauguration. He told Fox that the remarks, which he had once dismissed as "not elegantly stated," were wrong.
"Well, clearly in a campaign, with hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question-and-answer sessions, now and then you're going to say something that doesn't come out right," he said. "In this case, I said something that's just completely wrong."
He added: "And I absolutely believe, however, that my life has shown that I care about 100 percent and that's been demonstrated throughout my life. And this whole campaign is about the 100 percent."
Widespread anger over Romney's remarks had helped to give Obama a bit of a lift in key polls, and many wondered why the president didn't use them to fight back in Wednesday's debate, which most people agreed the newly energized Romney won.
Obama woke up during campaign appearances Thursday to make a rebuttal, accusing Romney of being dishonest about how his policies would affect the tax bills of middle-class families.
The government's new jobs report yesterday showed that the unemployment rate fell to 7.8 percent last month, dropping below 8 percent for the first time in nearly four years. It's now at the level it was when Obama took office. Unemployment had been at 8.1 percent.
The report broke an important psychological barrier before the November 6 election. No US president has been re-elected with unemployment above 8 percent since the Great Depression.
The report also had the potential to swing momentum back to Obama after he suffered through a weak first debate against Romney on Wednesday night.
Romney said shortly after the jobs report that 7.8 unemployment "is not what a real recovery looks like."
The final monthly jobs report before the election will come just days before November 6.
The new report quickly overran Romney's comments on his remarks about the "47 percent."
His campaign had been hit hard by the secretly taped remarks that emerged last month, in which he said he couldn't convince nearly half the country to "take personal responsibility" for their lives. He slipped behind Obama in some of the key battleground states that will decide the election as people again worried that the multimillionaire Romney was out of touch with average Americans.
But Romney's assertive debate performance against a tired-seeming Obama rallied Republicans again to his side.
Obama notably did not mention Romney's "47 percent" comment during the debate, but Romney brought it up in a Fox News interview on Thursday night, after a day of rallying conservative activists with his vision of his own inauguration. He told Fox that the remarks, which he had once dismissed as "not elegantly stated," were wrong.
"Well, clearly in a campaign, with hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question-and-answer sessions, now and then you're going to say something that doesn't come out right," he said. "In this case, I said something that's just completely wrong."
He added: "And I absolutely believe, however, that my life has shown that I care about 100 percent and that's been demonstrated throughout my life. And this whole campaign is about the 100 percent."
Widespread anger over Romney's remarks had helped to give Obama a bit of a lift in key polls, and many wondered why the president didn't use them to fight back in Wednesday's debate, which most people agreed the newly energized Romney won.
Obama woke up during campaign appearances Thursday to make a rebuttal, accusing Romney of being dishonest about how his policies would affect the tax bills of middle-class families.
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