A mixed October jobs report is fueling the final weekend presidential pitch with President Obama admitting his work is far from over, and GOP nominee Mitt Romney decrying the nation's nearly unchanged jobless rate as proof the economy remains in a "virtual standstill."
"We have made real progress," Obama said yesterday. "But we are here ... because we know we've got more work to do. As long as there's a single American who wants a job and can't find one, as long as there are families working harder but falling behind ... our fight goes on."
The nation added 171,000 jobs last month, as the U.S. unemployment rate rose a tenth of a point to 7.9 percent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also revised upward the numbers of jobs created in September and August to 148,000 and 192,000, respectively.
But Romney, who has pledged to create 12 million jobs in his first term if elected president, blasted Obama yesterday, saying that come Tuesday the nation will make a choice between "stagnation and prosperity."
"For four years, President Obama's policies have crushed America's middle class. For four years, President Obama has told us that things are getting better and that we're making progress," Romney said. "For too many American families, those words ring hollow."
Yesterday's jobs numbers are the last broad snapshot of the economy before Election Day. Obama now faces voters with the highest unemployment rate of any incumbent since Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Elliot Winer, chief economist for Northeast Economic Analysis Group, said while the economy "is at a standstill," it would take time for the nation to produce at least 200,000 jobs a month, even if Romney is elected to office.
"We're seeing modest job growth at best right now," he said. "It's not as if all of a sudden things have turned around the last couple of months and are booming."
But some saw a positive trend in the data.
"We have a long way to go back to 2007," said UMass Dartmouth public policy professor Michael Goodman. "However, when you see the labor force growing; when you see jobs growing across a reasonable range of industries; when you see the previous months' data rise up ... that's certainly good news for the national economy."
