UNEMPLOYMENT

Job Numbers Shake Obama Campaign

President responds to May report.

Barack Obama’s campaign has long known that he has to reassure Americans about their job prospects if he wants to keep his own. That pitch got harder to make Friday when May’s job numbers showed only 69,000 new positions were created last month, driving a rise in unemployment to 8.2 percent. Responding to the numbers Friday in Minnesota, Obama said the economy is “not growing as fast as we want it to grow,” but that “we will come back stronger; we do have better days ahead.” The GOP reads the economic tea leaves a little differently, saying Obama has to put forward a new strategy if he hopes to convince the American public that he’s serious about job creation.