For Immediate Release
January 6, 2017
Contact: DNC Press – 202-863-8148

Obama Economy Created 156,000 Jobs Last Month, Bringing Total to 15.8 Million Since 2010

WASHINGTON – DNC Interim Chair Donna Brazile released the following statement in response to the December jobs report, which is the last monthly report of President Obama’s tenure, and which showed wages growing at the fastest pace since 2009, with 156,000 new jobs created and the unemployment rate remaining below five percent:

“The last eight years of Democratic leadership in the White House have clearly steered our economy in the right direction. At the end of the last Republican administration, our economy was losing 800,000 jobs a month and millions of Americans were losing their homes and life savings. But under the Obama economy we have roared back. Wages are growing faster than at any point in the last seven years, the unemployment rate is less than half of its peak during the Great Recession, and U.S. businesses have added more than 15.8 million new jobs since early 2010.

“As Donald Trump prepares to take office, the American people are watching closely to see if he works to build on our progress or drag us backward. Everything Trump has done so far only reinforces the notion that he’s in this for himself and doesn’t care about ordinary hardworking Americans. His refusal to put his business assets in a blind trust has already created a litany of conflicts of interest. And he has abandoned his promise to ‘drain the swamp’ by filling his cabinet with special interests, Washington insiders, and the same Wall Street billionaires who contributed to the last financial crisis.

“None of this bodes well for families who can still feel the effects of the Great Recession. Democrats will hold Trump accountable if he attempts to use the presidency to enrich himself and undo our hard-won progress. And we will continue to offer the ideas and solutions that will move the economy forward and lift up American workers.”