Brooklyn, N.Y. – Congresswoman Yvette D. Clarke released the following statement after the Department of Labor announced that the economy added 321,000 jobs in November, the fifty-eighth consecutive month of increases in private-sector jobs. The unemployment rate remained unchanged at 5.8 percent, the lowest unemployment rate since July 2008. 
 
“Under the leadership of President Obama, our economy continues to expand. Yet many Americans have been excluded from the benefits of the recovery, either as a result of long-term unemployment, in which case they no longer appear in our nation’s unemployment data or having become trapped in under-employment with wages and benefits that have actually decreased in recent years. We have a responsibility to invest in the American people, by renewing our public works and supporting and expanding access to college and job training programs, as well as research and development that will build the stronger, more enduring foundations of an economy in which every American has the opportunity to earn a living wage.”

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.