.President Barack Obama delivers remarks about the fight for jobs before an audience at Henry Maier Festival Park in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on September 6, 2010.

(Whitehouse.gov) Some of you remember I stood right here with you two years ago when I was still a candidate for this office. (Applause.) And during that campaign, we talked about how, for years, the values of hard work and responsibility that had built this country had been given short shrift, and how it was slowly hollowing out our middle class. Listen, everybody who has a chair, go ahead and sit down, because everybody’s all hollering. (Applause.) Just relax, I’m going to be talking for a while now. (Applause.) Everybody take -- (applause) -- got a lot of hardworking people here, you deserve to sit down for a day. (Applause.) You’ve been on your feet all year working hard.

But two years ago, we talked about some on Wall Street who were taking reckless risks and cutting corners to turn huge profits while working Americans were fighting harder and harder just to stay afloat. We talked about how the decks all too often were stacked in favor of special interests and against the interests of working Americans.

And what we knew, even then, was that these years would be some of the most difficult in our history. And then, two weeks later -- two weeks after I spoke here -- the bottom fell out of the economy. And middle-class families suddenly found themselves swept up in the worst recession of our lifetimes.

So the problems facing working families, they’re nothing new. But they are more serious than ever. And that makes our cause more urgent than ever. For generations, it was the great American working class, the great American middle class that made our economy the envy of the world. It’s got to be that way again. (Applause.)

Milwaukee, it was folks like you that built this city. It was folks like you that built this state. It was folks like you who forged that middle class all across the nation.

It was working men and women who made the 20th century the American century. It was the labor movement that helped secure so much of what we take for granted today. (Applause.) The 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, family leave, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, retirement plans. The cornerstones of the middle-class security all bear the union label. (Applause.)

He spoke about his grandfather, part of the Greatest Generation, who helped teach him about what being a hard-working American is all about, and how that has shaped his values as a man and as a publlic servant. And he spoke about how the struggles his grandfather saw relate to the tough times millions of hard-working Americans are struggling through right now:

And I know -- I know that there are folks right here in this audience, folks right here in Milwaukee and all across America, who are going through these kinds of struggles.

Eight million Americans lost their jobs in this recession. And even though we’ve had eight straight months of private sector job growth, the new jobs haven’t been coming fast enough. Now, here’s the honest truth, the plain truth. There’s no silver bullet.

There’s no quick fix to these problems. I knew when I was running for office, and I certainly knew by the time I was sworn in, I knew it would take time to reverse the damage of a decade worth of policies that saw too few people being able to climb into the middle class, too many people falling behind. (Applause.)

We all knew this. We all knew that it would take more time than any of us want to dig ourselves out of this hole created by this economic crisis. But on this Labor Day, there are two things I want you to know. Number one: I am going to keep fighting every single day, every single hour, every single minute, to turn this economy around and put people back to work and renew the American Dream, not just for your family, not just for all our families, but for future generations. That I can guarantee you. (Applause.)

Number two -- I believe this with every fiber of my being: America cannot have a strong, growing economy without a strong, growing middle class, and the chance for everybody, no matter how humble their beginnings, to join that middle class -- (applause) -- a middle class built on the idea that if you work hard, if you live up to your responsibilities, then you can get ahead; that you can enjoy some basic guarantees in life. A good job that pays a good wage.

Health care that will be there when you get sick. (Applause.) A secure retirement even if you’re not rich. (Applause.) An education that will give your children a better life than we had. (Applause.) These are simple ideas. These are American ideas.

These are union ideas. That’s what we’re fighting for. (Applause.)

To read the President’s remarks in its entirety, please visit
Whitehouse.gov

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