As part of a new fall political campaign
Boosted by the lowest jobless rate in six years, President Barack Obama on Friday heralded September's hiring rate as the longest uninterrupted stretch of private sector job growth in U.S. history and declared that the United States is surpassing combined job creation in other advanced economies.
The Labor Department's report Friday that employers hired 248,000 and that the jobless rate fell to 5.9 percent came as Obama was reviving his economic message ahead of the November midterms, calling attention to industrial gains that have helped restore some higher-wage jobs during the recovery from the Great Recession.
"We're on pace for the strongest job growth since the 1990s," Obama said.
Obama was speaking at a steel manufacturing plant in Princeton, Indiana, as part of a new fall political campaign push to promote his pocketbook policies and to claim credit for the upturn in the economy. The visit coincided with a White House announcement for a competition to create a manufacturing innovation institute concentrated on photonics, or the use of light in technology, ranging from lasers to telecommunications.
With large rolls of sheet steel behind him, Obama held a campaign-style question and answer session where he faced pointed questions about his push to raise the minimum wage, escalating health care costs and government environmental policies about coal.