Obama Hails Job Data But Warns More Work Needs To Be Done

President Barack Obama hailed the drop in the U.S. jobless rate in September to the lowest level since he took office as a "a reminder this country has come too far to turn back now." A decline in the U.S. unemployment rate, announced a month before the election, is expected to give his campaign a boost after he performed poorly in a debate with Republican opponent Mitt Romney. "More Americans entered the workforce, more people are getting jobs," Obama told a campaign rally at George Mason University in Virginia. "Now, every month reminds us that we've still got too many friends and neighbors who are looking for work." "Today's news is certainly not an excuse to try to talk down the economy to score a few political points," he said, taking a swipe at Romney Labor Department data released on Friday (October 5) showed the jobless rate dropped by 0.3 percentage point in September to 7.8 percent, its lowest since January 2009. Employers added 114,000 workers to their payrolls. Romney had made the president's failure to drive the rate below eight percent a key plank in his campaign.