Obama Momentum Runs into Labor Report Road Block

Current President Barack Obama enjoyed his highest public approval rating on Thursday night since early last year. On Friday however, the President received a not so kind greeting from the Labor Department’s jobs report.

The results of the latest report for August were much worse that had been expected. Those negative results threatened to put a damper on the recent enthusiasm the Democrats were able to produce during this past week’s Democratic National Convention.

Only 12 hours after Obama accepted the nomination of his party at their convention in North Carolina, challenger Mitt Romney, the Republican presidential nominee was using the labor data to show his supporters how difficult it is for the current White House administration to run the economy.

The Department of Labor on Friday released its jobs report for August and was the main topic for both Obama and Romney while they campaigned. The August jobs figures showed a still sluggish economy in the U.S. only added 96,000 jobs for the month, which was lower than July’s figure of 141,000.

However, the rate of unemployment for the country in August dropped from 8.3% to 8.1%. Although, that is deceiving as many people gave up looking for work last month and the government only counts those people who are actively searching for work as being unemployed.

The new reports also sparked new speculation that the government’s Federal Reserve Bank would step in and provide more stimulus. The Fed meets next week and its Chairman Ben Bernanke said in August that the labor market was a big concern for him and the Fed and it threatened to derail the progress of the economy of many years.