Valerie Jarrett on Low Unemployment Numbers: We Should Look at Obama’s Progress

Friday on CNN’s “New Day,” former senior advisor to President Barack Obama, Valerie Jarrett said today’s announcement that the unemployment rate was 3.9 percent, the lowest since 2000, was a continuation of Obama’s progress.

Host Alisyn Camerota asked, “The breaking news that we just had moments ago were the new job numbers, the lowest in anybody’s memory, 3.9 percent unemployment rate. It’s been 15 months of Donald Trump’s presidency. Do you give him credit for that?”

Jarrett said, “Look, I think we have to look at it over a longer horizon than that. If you think about what the economy was like when President Obama took office, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month. Under his watch, the unemployment rate dropped in half, and it’s encouraging to see that we’re continuing to make progress. We want to see wages go up and I think that’s an important focus and I was glad to see you talk about that too. So for the workers out there who are back to work today, I think it’s very encouraging.”

(h/t Grabien)

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

COMMENTS

Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.