Former White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett on Friday attributed Friday's record-low unemployment numbers to the policies of former Democratic President Barack Obama and not the Trump administration.
"We have to look at it over a longer horizon than that," Jarrett told Alisyn Camerota on CNN after the 3.9 percent rate was announced.
"If you think about what the economy was like when President Obama took office, we were losing 750,000 jobs a month.
"Under his watch, the unemployment rate dropped in half — and it's encouraging to see that we're continuing to make progress," Jarrett said.
The Labor Department reported that the 3.9 percent rate for April, the lowest in nearly 18 years, was two-tenths of a percentage point lower than the March rate of 4.1 percent.
The April rate was the lowest since December 2000 — and the decline was the rate's first in six months.
President Trump lauded the report in a speech to the National Rifle Association in Dallas, saying that "since the election, we have created 3.2 million jobs" and noting declines in joblessness among African Americans and Hispanics.
He also tweeted about the report before the speech.
But the Labor Department said that wages barely rose last month, which Jarrett highlighted.
"We want to see wages go up, and I think that's an important focus," she told Camerota. "I was glad to see you talk about that, too.
"So, for the workers out there who are back to work today, I think it's very encouraging."
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