Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), Vice Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, today called the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ report that the economy added only 103,000 new private sector jobs in August and left the unemployment rate mired at 8.1% “more dismal news for America’s job seekers.”

“Today’s report confirms that the Obama recovery has fallen even further into dead last among the ten recoveries since World War II that lasted more than a year.” Brady noted. “Why President Obama celebrates his economic record is beyond me. The inescapable truth is that if the economy had, under Obama’s economic leadership, performed at the average rate of past recoveries, over four million more Americans would working today rather than looking for work.”

“These are the unlucky four million Americans who can’t find work because this President can’t even reach average.”

According to an analysis by Joint Economic Committee Republican staff, the U.S. economy under President Obama has added only 4.3% to private sector payrolls over the past thirty months compared to nearly double that rate – 8.3% - for the average of the other nine recoveries since WWII over the comparable time period.

If the Obama recovery had merely reached the average of his predecessors, 4.3 million more private sector jobs would have been created in America over the past 30 months. If this recovery had proceeded at the pace of the strong Reagan recovery in the 1980s, there would be an additional 7.4 million private jobs.