GOP Criticizes Obama After Weak Jobs Report Spurs Stock Market Sell-Off

Jittery investors now have even more to worry about after a disappointing May jobs report slammed Wall Street on Friday, wiping out the entire gains for the stock market this year. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 275 points, or 2.2 percent. The Nasdaq and S&P 500 were also down, dropping 2.8 percent and 2.5 percent, respectively.

The decline sent the Dow into negative territory for the year to date after the latest jobs report showed the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.2 percent in May, the first time in a year that the figure rose. The U.S. added just 69,000 jobs, less than half what was expected and the smallest gain in a year.

Still, the news wasn’t bad for everyone. Friday’s turn of events gave Mitt Romney and Republicans a new opportunity to partake in one of their favorite pastimes: criticizing President Obama and his economic policies. –TEB

The New York Times:

Republicans quickly seized on Friday’s disappointing jobs report as fresh evidence of what they say are President Obama’s “job-killing” policies and further proof of the need for a new occupant in the White House next year.

…Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, called the report “devastating news for American workers and American families” and mocked the president’s campaign slogan, “forward,” saying that the country has been moving backward under the president’s policies.

“This week has seen a cascade of one bad piece of economic news after another,” Mr. Romney said in a statement. “Slowing G.D.P. growth, plunging consumer confidence, an increase in unemployment claims, and now another dismal jobs report all stand as a harsh indictment of the president’s handling of the economy.”

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