Politics
Obama announces New Manufacturing Hub in North Carolina
U.S. President Barack Obama addresses the audience at North Carolina State University., January 15, 2014. PHOTO/Carolyn Kaster/AP
Making good on a promise from last year’s State of the Union to help create good-paying American jobs, U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced a new public-private manufacturing hub in North Carolina to develop next-generation power electronics.
Obama’s announcement was meant to give a manufacturing boost to the state that has taken hits in the recession. “We’re not going to turn things around overnight. A lot of jobs were lost in the textile industry and furniture-making,” he told 2,000 gathered at a North Carolina State University arena.
But he expressed optimism that the time is now for a change. “This can be a breakthrough year for America,” Obama said. “The pieces are all there to start bringing back more of the jobs that we’ve lost over the past decade.”
Obama’s quick stop in North Carolina also comes after the government reported last Friday that employers added just 74,000 jobs in December. The report raised fresh concerns about the pace of the economic recovery. The national unemployment rate also fell three-tenths of a percentage point, from 7 percent to 6.7 percent, to its lowest level in more than 5 years, but only because a wave of job-seekers had given up looking for work. That meant the government no longer counted them as unemployed.
The White House says that since the end of the recession, manufacturing has grown at the fastest pace in more than a decade, with more than a half-million jobs added in the past four years. The figure includes the addition of about 80,000 jobs in just the past five months. “Manufacturing is a bright spot in this economy,” Obama said.
Obama also used the occasion to jawbone Congress to reinstate long-term unemployment benefits. The program expired late last month and immediately cut off financial aid for more than 1.3 million people who have exhausted their state-paid unemployment benefits. Senate votes Tuesday on a pair of Democratic-drafted proposals to reinstate the program fell short of the tally needed for passage.
“Where I can act on my own, without Congress, I’m going to do so. And today I’m here to act,” Obama said to applause.
