DNC Chair statement on longest period of private sector job growth in US history

WASHINGTON — DNC Chair Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz released the following statement in response to May’s jobs report that showed 38,000 new jobs created and the unemployment rate dropping to 4.7%:

“In the six months before President Obama took office the stock market lost half of its value, and through the Great Recession millions of Americans lost their jobs, homes and savings. Seven years later, today’s jobs report shows that we have now had 75 straight months of private-sector job growth – the longest stretch on record. We still have a long way to go to ensure everyone in America has greater opportunities and to ensure wages are growing and meeting the needs of hard-working families, but this is progress that the American people can be proud of. It’s clear that the economy has undergone a remarkable turnaround from where we were eight years ago, when eight million jobs were lost in the Great Recession.

“Unfortunately, that progress is under attack and put at risk by what Donald Trump is promising to do if elected. Remember, Trump rooted for the 2008 housing crisis because he believed he could profit off of it, and he showed no concern that families would lose everything. It’s a pattern we saw clearly this week, with revelations about his for-profit, never-licensed school, ‘Trump University,’ which has been under investigation for being a scam that cheated thousands of Americans, including some of the most vulnerable, out of their hard earned money. Not surprisingly, the reckless tax plan he has proposed would cost the economy $9.5 trillion while handing massive tax breaks to those at the very top – the one tenth of the one percent – who would get a bigger tax break than 120 million hard working Americans combined. We cannot afford to let Trump fleece hardworking Americans from the Oval Office.

“We need a forward-looking president who will build on the progress we’ve already made and ensure that we have an economy that works for all – not just the wealthy few. We must elect a Democrat as our next president.”