The US is continuing to recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression, the White House said after the latest jobs report revealed that the unemployment rate for the month of April has dropped to 7.5 per cent, the lowest in four years.
"The jobs report demonstrated that we're continuing to recover from the worst recession since the Great Depression," White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters while travelling with US President Barack Obama to Latin America yesterday.
"While it was better than expectations, it also demonstrated that we have more work to do and that the last thing we need is for Washington to unnecessarily throw up obstacles to economic growth or inflict wounds on the economy. And that is exactly what sequestration does," he said.
Sequester or automatic budgetary cuts, he argued, will have devastating impact on the nation's economy. Sequester, he said, will cost the economy three-quarters of a million jobs and roughly half a percentage point of economic growth.
"We are still progressing away from the worst downturn of our lifetimes. We as a country cannot afford to have Congress, in this case, negligently throw up obstacles to economic growth and job creation. It's pretty nonsensical," Carney said.
Referring to the latest jobs report, he said, it demonstrates that now for 68 straight months they have been creating private-sector jobs, a total of roughly 6.8 million private sector jobs since the job loss was reversed.
"But we still have some ways to go," White House Press Secretary said.
The latest monthly jobs said that the unemployment rate has dropped to a four year low of 7.5 per cent, as the economy added 165,000 jobs in the month of April.
Alan B Krueger, Chairman of the US President's Council of Economic Advisers said while more work remains to be done, the latest employment report provides further evidence that the US economy is continuing to recover from the worst downturn since the Great Depression.
"It is critical that we remain focused on pursuing policies to speed job creation and expand the middle class, as we continue to dig our way out of the deep hole that was caused by the severe recession that began in December 2007," he said.
