Mr. Speaker, job creation under the Bush administration remains disappointing, despite 3 years of economic recovery. Last month the economy created only 78,000 jobs. There are fewer private sector jobs in the United States today than there were in January 2001 when President Bush took office. In fact, the economy must still create an additional 24,000 jobs just to get back to where we were in 2001. In the Clinton years we created 23 million new jobs. We did not lose private sector jobs.
Also on this President's watch, our economy has lost 2.8 million manufacturing jobs, including 7,000 more last month. The weakness of the job market is also showing up in the continued stagnation of workers' earnings. Today, on average, workers' hourly wages are down 1 percent from last year if you factor in inflation. That means workers are taking home less, at a time when their health care, education and gas bills are skyrocketing.
Mr. Speaker, Republicans had their chance to jump-start the economy. For 4 years they have been cutting taxes for the wealthiest few in the hopes that jobs and higher salaries would trickle down to the middle class. It has not happened.