Blog: Economic Recovery & Job Creation Pick Up Steam

Statement

When President Obama was sworn into office, America was facing the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression. In January 2009, the American economy lost 779,000 jobs in one month and the economy shrank by 6.4 percent in the first quarter of 2009. That was the worst quarterly economic contraction experienced by the United States in the past 50 years. In a swift response to the economic crisis, Congress passed, and the President signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act(Recovery Act) into law in February of 2009. Over the past year, we have witnessed the fastest three-quarter swing in economic growth in almost three decades. Instead of losing hundreds of thousands of jobs, we are beginning to see private sector employers rehire Americans who have lost their jobs. As the chart below shows, the economy created jobs in the last five months:

[Chart]

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