ladies and gentlemen, this is joe biden, i'm filling in for president obama, while he addresses the nato summit in wales.
when the president and i took office in january of , this nation was in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the great depression. our economy had plummeted1 at a rate of 8% in a single quarter-part of the fastest economic decline any time in the last half century. millions of families were falling underwater on their homes and threatened with foreclosure. the iconic american automobile2 industry was under siege.
but yesterday's jobs report was another reminder3 of how far we've come. we've had 54 straight months of job creation. and that's the longest streak4 of uninterrupted job growth in the united states' history.
we've gone from losing 9 million jobs during the financial crisis to creating 10 million jobs. we've reduced the unemployment rate from 10% in october of to 6.1% today. and for the first time since the 1990s, american manufacturing is steadily5 adding jobs-over 700,000 since . and surveys of both american and foreign business leaders confirm that america once again is viewed as the best place in the world to build and invest.
that's all good news.