OBAMA: ""We've added more jobs than any year since 2006. ... That's the longest streak of private sector job creation in our history."
Friday President Obama called the U.S. economy "booming" hours after July jobs numbers were released.
He also really gave Congress a verbal beating — but that's another story. This story is about that jobs report and how it's being portrayed in the media. First, here's a look at some key numbers.
More than 209,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in July. That's slightly fewer than the 230,000 Wall Street predicted. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate climbed from 6.1 percent to 6.2 percent. (Via Getty Images)
Many experts agreed the uptick is likely the result of more people re-entering the workforce. (Via The Wall Street Journal, Twitter / @bencasselman, Twitter / @JustinWolfers)
Florida International economics professor Jose Gabilondo tells MSNBC that means faith in the job market is being restored.
"It's no economic miracle, but it's a positive sign. More people are entering the labor forcing looking for work, and they first show up as unemployed before they show up as employed. So that's actually positive."
So how is the report playing out in the media?
The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times had similar takes, noting overall growth for the year remains strong despite the easing of gains in July.
CNN's Christine Romans gives a look at the first half of this year compared to the growth in years past.
"Now you have 229,000 jobs on average each month this year. That's the strongest start to the year we've had since 2006 at least."
And The Wall Street Journal's Pedro da Costa tweets that it's "the first six-month period of above-200,000/month jobs ... since 1997."
But Fox News' Stuart Varney says those positive reviews were based on success from earlier this year and that the July report in itself was "disappointing."
"We've had a string of good individual economic reports this week. Nice growth for the economy, growth for wages and all the rest of it, but now the big report comes out and it lets you down flat. It's disappointing."
But ABC notes there could be a "silver lining" to July's disappointment: The report isn't strong enough for the Federal Reserve to pull back economic stimulus.
That means interest rates are likely to remain at near-zero levels at least until we see a string of strong, positive growth reports. If everything holds steady, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said Wednesday we won't see rates go up until sometime next year. (Via Getty Images)
