WASHINGTON — With devastating conflicts abroad dominating the news and midterm elections looming, President Obama made a play to get some credit for national economic gains by claiming “we are better off than when I took office.”
“Here’s the bottom line,” Obama said Thursday in a speech at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
“For all the work that remains, for all the citizens we still need to reach, what I want people to know is that there are some really good things happening in America. By every economic measure, we are better off now than when I took office.”
Obama pitched “the longest uninterrupted stretch of private-sector job creation in our history” and a drop in the nation’s unemployment rate, but acknowledged long-term unemployment.
An AP poll Wednesday ranked the economy as the top issue for likely voters in November.
Republicans had a distinctly different view of the economy.
“For the umpteenth time, President Obama is attempting to ‘refocus attention on the economy’— this time with a speech on ‘economic greatness,’” countered House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio).
“The trouble is, the Obama economy is anything but ‘great’ for the vast majority of Americans.”
