Statement on the New Job Numbers

SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY STATEMENT ON THE NEW JOB NUMBERS

It's official: President Bush will be the first President since the days of Herbert Hoover and the Great Depression over 70 years ago to preside over a net loss of jobs during his presidency.

Today's job numbers show that only 96,000 jobs were created last month, even lower than economists had predicted and far from enough to keep up with population growth. Even worse, a third of those jobs were in temporary positions and another third were government jobs - which means that private sector job creation is far from recovering.

President Bush tries to blame this new sign of a faltering economy partly on the rash of hurricanes last month. But the President's own Department of Labor said that the hurricanes did not affect the job numbers.

The bottom line is that vast numbers of families are being squeezed hard by the Bush economy. They face tough and unfair choices on food and rent and health care and on other basic needs because this President has made the wrong choices. America can do better, and every American knows it.