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The unemployment rate among Americans has increased slightly, but a good number of jobs have also been created in the United States , giving both presidential contenders Barack Obama and Mitt Romney a reason to be optimistic in the run up to the November elections, according to a report. According to a survey, the economy added 163,000 jobs in July, which far exceeded estimates and is nearly 100,000 more than the jobs that were created last month, leading Obama to tout that his policies were working. "We knew that if we were persistent, if we kept at it and kept working, that we'd gradually get to where we need to be," the New York Daily News quoted Obama, as saying during a White House press conference. "We knew when I started in this job that this was going to take some time. We haven't had to come back from an economic crisis this deep or this painful since the 1930s," Obama noted. Democrats, who claim the GOP's tax plans would only help the rich, also noted that the nation had added jobs in 29 straight months, and had almost recovered all of the jobs lost since the start of the recession. However, Republican candidate Mitt Romney, whose claimed that Obama's economic plans have fallen short, called the rise in the unemployment rate "a hammer blow to struggling middle-class families." "This is an extraordinary record of failure. These numbers are not just statistics. These are real people, really suffering. I will get America working again," Romney said. The unemployment rate is determined by a survey of households, while the job growth statistic, seen as slightly more reliable by most economists, is measured by tabulating workplace hirings, the report said.

Obama rides high on new jobs creation