President Obama used a visit Friday to a small Northern Virginia company to promote clean-energy jobs to talk about the February jobless numbers and urge Congress to pass more legislation to help the unemployed and boost the economy.
The president said the loss of 36,000 more jobs last month was “better than expected” considering the severe snow storms that hit the East Coast and that the number shows the administration’s economic-stimulus plans are working.
“But even though it’s better than expected, it’s more than we should tolerate,” said the president during his visit to the the OPOWER energy software company. “Far too many Americans remain out of work.”
The U.S. unemployment rate is now at 9.7 percent and roughly 8.5 million jobs have been lost since the recession started in December 2007.
Mr. Obama chose OPOWER in part because the company — which shows utility companies and their customers how to reduce heat loss and improve energy efficiency — doubled its workforce to 60 employees in 2009. The company expects to add 100 more workers this year.
“This is a model of what we want to be seeing all across the country,” the president said. “Our goal for the economy is to show similar job growth in the months ahead.”
The president praised Congress for passing legislation earlier this week that extends unemployment benefits for another month and returns to work 2,000 furloughed transportation employees.
He called the legislation just a “temporary step,” however, and urged Congress to extend the benefits through the end of the year.
“We need to extend unemployment insurance and COBRA to help Americans weather these tough times,” he said. “We’ve got to do everything we can to help the private sector create jobs right now.”
He also asked Congress to pass jobs measures that cut taxes and increase lending for all businesses.
In addition, he wants Congress to pass his Homestar initiative, which gives homeowners rebates for making their houses more energy-efficient. The rebates are worth a maximum $1,500 for individual home upgrades and $3,000 for retrofitting an entire home.
Homestar is the most recent in a series of clean-energy initiatives the president has put forth since taking office in January 2009 — including the production of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries for fuel-efficient vehicles.
“The country that leads in clean energy and energy efficiency today, I’m absolutely convinced, is going to lead the global economy tomorrow,” he said. “I want that country to be the United States of America.”
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