Unemployment Rate Drops to 4.9 percent; Wages Rise

When Obama assumed office, the unemployment rate was still rising sharply. It topped out at 10 percent in October 2009, hovering just below that level for the next year, before beginning a steady decline at the end of 2010 that has persisted into early-2016 and breaking through the 5 percent mark at the beginning of 2016.

The government, delivering the last major snapshot of the economy before Election Day 2016, reported on Friday that employers added 161,000 workers in October, a performance that suggested a healthy outlook for the months ahead.

The official unemployment rate dropped to 4.9 percent, from 5 percent. And average hourly earnings rose 2.8 percent year over year, a level not reached since 2008.

“It was pretty positive across the board,” said David Berson, chief economist at Nationwide Insurance, adding that “most importantly, we got a nice jump in average hourly earnings and that actually corresponds with other data.”

Does anyone out there remember what the economy was like when Obama took office?!