June Jobs Report

Floor Speech

Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Speaker, yes, the June jobs report is not encouraging: 18,000 jobs added. But I cannot ever forget that it was January 2009 when we lost 741,000 jobs, the last month of the Bush Presidency.

Under President Obama, we have added jobs, and, of course, we have not added enough; but they have been adding. But the American people should know that we need about 150,000 jobs a month in order to push the unemployment rate down. Because we added jobs but not enough, the unemployment rate has gone up.

But the most important thing for the American people to know is that the Republican promise to make jobs the first agenda during the election has not been fulfilled. They have yet to introduce or pass through this House one single jobs bill, not one. All they have done is cut jobs, mostly by going after public employees. And this is what the American people need to bear in mind as they think about who is on their side.

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