President Obama took criticism from Republicans over the weekend after saying the private sector is “doing fine.” Obama was comparing the private sector’s gain of 4.3 million jobs in the past 27 months to the public sector’s loss of 550,000 jobs over the same period. On Friday, Obama clarified his stance.

President Obama: “The economy is not doing fine. There are too many people out of work. The housing market is still weak and too many homes under water. And that’s precisely why I asked Congress to start taking some steps that can make a difference. What I’ve been saying consistently over the last year, we’ve actually seen some good momentum in the private sector. We’ve seen 4.3 million jobs created, 800,000 this year alone, record corporate profits. And so that has not been the biggest drag on the economy.”