Obama Press Conference on Long-Term Unemployment
BANFIELD: Again to the live mic in the East Room at the White House. The president is about to be live at the mike. He is being introduced right now. The vice president in attendance as well. What's important about this is it is an issue that has been on the minds of many in the struggling economy while the stock market does well, the 401K has had a great year. Unemployment still stinks, particularly long-term employment. Many people say bad unemployment numbers don't take into account those that just dropped out and stopped look. So today what the president is doing, is he is meeting with some of the top companies to get them to push to interview and hire the long-term unemployed. It turns out, it is real hard to get those interviews. He is not only with the vice president, but all the leaders are in the room, too.</s>BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you so much. Thank you, everybody.</s>OBAMA: Everybody please have a seat. First of all, let me just thank Eric for being here, for sharing his story, for his service to our country. I hope that listening to Eric here, everybody recognizes what a great success story this is. Also, the notion that somebody with this kind of skill and talent was having difficulty finding a job indicates the challenge we face. I want to thank all of you, business leaders, philanthropists, elected officials, all levels of my cabinet, not only for coming but for committing to more success stories for people like Eric. Making sure everybody in this country who wants to work has a chance to get ahead and not just get a paycheck but also the dignity and the structure that a job provides people. On Tuesday, I delivered my State of the Union address. I said that while the economy is getting stronger, businesses like yours have created more than eight million new jobs and our unemployment rate has been lower than it has been in five years, we all know we still have more to do to build an economy where everybody who is willing to work hard and take responsibility can get ahead. We've got to do more to restore opportunity for every American. The opportunity agenda I laid out begins with doing everything we can to create new jobs here in America, jobs in construction, in manufacturing, jobs in American innovation, American energy. They are steps we can take to streamline our tax code and incentivize companies to invest here. There are things to do to make sure we are continuing to lead the world in innovation and basic research. We have a whole lot of infrastructure we can do. We have deferred maintenance in America. The ramifications of us taking that on would be significant. We have to grow faster and put more shoulders behind the wheel of expand can in the economic world. Step two is making sure that every man has the skills to fill those jobs. Step three, we have to guarantee every child access to a world class education from early childhood to college to a career.</s>OBAMA: Step four, we have to make sure that hard work pays off with wages you can live on, savings you can retire on, health insurance that's there for you when you need it. Today, we are here to focus on that second point. Connecting more ready to work Americans with ready to be filled jobs so that folks that are out of work can apply the skills they already have.</s>BANFIELD: It turns out, there are numerous studies the president continues to talk about, the larger companies that have committed to a process whereby they will try to get the long-term unemployed into the workforce. There are studies that showed that people who are unemployed for six months or more are significantly less likely to get that job interview response on the basis of just fact that they have been out of work a long time. I want to bring in Wolf Blitzer, standing by live. He is watching what the president has been up to for the last couple of days. I want to speak specifically to what is happening today and how the president wants to go about this. He is meeting with leaders in Motorola, eBay, McDonald's, Walgreens, Apple, Bank of America. But he is talking about executive action. If Congress isn't going to work with me, I will do it by myself.</s>WOLF BLITZER, HOST, THE SITUATION ROOM: He's trying to find a way to work with these companies. He is trying to encourage them to hire long-term unemployed, six months, more than a year, people that lost their jobs through no fault of their own. The company may have gone bankrupt. The companies may be downsizing. These are highly qualified people that can't find a job. He is looking for ways to be more assertive, more aggressive in working with these companies encouraging them to go out there and look for these long-term unemployed folks who are qualified. They are not getting the interviews or opportunities a lot of folks think they deserve. They are plotting new strategy and research and incentives. If they are too qualified for a job, one person who may already have the job. The other person has been a long-term unemployed person and go ahead and give that long-term unemployed person a shot and bring an additional work person into the workforce as opposed to giving somebody else who already has a job that opportunity. These are complicated issues. There may be some ways to lower that long-term unemployed number.</s>BANFIELD:  1: 00, Wolf Blitzer is back. 5:00 as well in "The Situation Room." It is must-see TV on Friday. Thanks, Wolf. Have a good weekend.</s>BLITZER: Thank you.</s>BANFIELD: Dennis Rodman is in rehab. We knew that. We didn't know he was going to keep quiet. He is back in front of the camera and he is back with our Chris Cuomo. Do you remember what happened the last time these two got together? Wait until you see what happens this time.