Rep. Kevin Brady (R-TX), Chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, reacted to today’s report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that the economy added 175,000 nonfarm payroll jobs, 178,000 thousand private sector jobs, and that the unemployment rate rose to 7.6% during May.

“Today’s report again confirms that we need to take the chains off of the private economy. Government policies are stifling growth and job creation in the private sector,” Brady noted. Brady went on to describe the employment report as “the good, the bad, and the ugly.”

“The good news is that for the 39th consecutive month the economy added private sector jobs. The bad news is that this recovery has produced four million fewer private sector jobs than the average of other post-World War II recovery,” Brady said.

According to Brady, “The really ugly news in this report is that a smaller percentage of adult Americans are working today than when the recession ended four years ago. That’s not consistent with a real recovery.”

“The fact that the unemployment rate rose 0.1% to 7.6% is disappointing and far exceeds the 5.1% rate that the American people were told the stimulus bill of 2009 would deliver. And the decline from the high of 10.0% is largely a mirage driven by a labor force participation rate that has fallen to levels last seen in the late 1970s. Without that decline, we would be facing an unemployment rate close to 11%.”