Business
Obama: How to reduce unemployment to 6%
U.S. President Barack Obama. PHOTO/File
The construction industry and state and local governments are among the biggest drags on the nation’s economic recovery, President Obama said Wednesday.
If those two sectors were recovering as they have in previous recessions, the unemployment rate would be in the 6 percent range, the president told a group of digital journalists gathered at the White House.
If these areas were to have a similar rebound now, each one would take a point off of the nation’s 8.3 percent unemployment rate.
Obama has long championed sending more aid to state and local governments and boosting infrastructure spending. These two areas received billions of dollars from his 2009 stimulus act in hopes of reversing the nation’s freefalling economy. But Congress has resisted funneling more money to assist these sectors.