Brooklyn, N.Y. – Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke released the following statement on a report from the Department of Labor that the United States added 217,000 jobs in May, reducing the unemployment rate to 6.7 percent, the lowest rate of unemployment since President Obama was inaugurated.

“Our economy continues to improve, with the fifty-first consecutive month in which we have added private-sector jobs. Yet there are millions of Americans who remain unemployed, and have been unemployed for more than a year, whose benefits have expired,” said Congresswoman Clarke. “We have a responsibility to build an economy in which every person has the opportunity to participate, and in which none of our families because destitute after the loss of a job.  I will continue to work with my colleagues to have a vote on legislation to create jobs, by investing, for example, in the education of our children and the renewal of our infrastructure.” 

U.S. Representative Yvette D. Clarke is a member of the House Committee on Small Business, Ethics, and Homeland Security, where she is the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Infrastructure Protection, and Security Technologies. She represents many neighborhoods in central and southern Brooklyn, NY which include Brownsville, Crown Heights, East Flatbush, Flatbush, Gerritsen Beach, Madison, Midwood, parts of Park Slope and Flatlands, Prospect Heights, Prospect-Lefferts Gardens, Sheepshead Bay, and Windsor Terrace.