Obama: Overall economy headed 'in the right direction' By NBC's Shawna Thomas and Domenico Montanaro POLAND, Ohio -- It took President Obama about 10 minutes before addressing today's sluggish jobs report, showing just 80,000 jobs created and the unemployment rate unchanged at 8.2 percent. But he said the economy overall is heading "in the right direction." He blamed any sluggishness not on his policies, but on a "stalemate in Washington." "[B]usinesses have created 4.4 million new jobs over the past 28 months," the president said, "including 500,000 new manufacturing jobs. That's a step in the right direction. But we can't be satisfied, because our goal was never to just keep on working to get back where we were back in 2007, and I want to get back to a time when middle-class families and those working to get to the middle class have some basic security. That's our goal. He also derided Mitt Romney and Republicans once again for wanting to try policies, the president charged, that have already been tried and failed.