couriernews

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Jobs growth may end, limiting President Obama to one term

Updated: July 27, 2012 6:09AM



Jobs growth may end, limiting President Obama to one term

President Obama is trying to run for re-election on his record, a fairly weak one. He bragged at a news conference on June 8 that “we’ve added 4.3 million jobs in 27 months” and concluded that “the private sector is doing fine.”

Well, 4.3 million jobs isn’t nearly enough with our 8.2 percent unemployment rate.

He was quickly told how wrong he was and tried to correct it a few hours later by saying, “The economy is not doing fine, but the private sector has good momentum.”

However, it is risky to depend on momentum, because it carries an action at a slowing pace if no additional driving force is added. That is what happened to our jobs growth in April and May. The pace will continue to slow if nothing new is added to encourage jobs growth.

Obama must try to add an impetus for jobs growth, or it will continue to slow until it stops ­— quite possibly making him a one-term president.

Donald B. Abbs

Elgin





© 2011 Sun-Times Media, LLC. All rights reserved. This material may not be copied or distributed without permission. For more information about reprints and permissions, visit www.suntimesreprints.com. To order a reprint of this article, click here.