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Washington A better-than-expected report on the US job market Friday could give a modest to lift to struggling Democrats, one month before an election that could flip control of the Senate to Republicans.

The economy created a robust 248,000 jobs in September and the official unemployment rate fell to 5.9 percent from 6.1 percent the month before, the Labor Department reported.

Thats welcome news for US workers, and in political terms, such signs of economic improvement tend to buoy the party that controls the White House.

But despite a string of solid job reports in recent months, the state of the economy is, at best, providing modest support to Democrats in key races. Far from assuring that Democrats can retain their narrow control of the Senate, the improvingjob market is simply helping them to stay in the election game.

Republicans need a net gain of six Senate seats to take charge.

President Obama, seeking to help his party, is doing his best to capitalize on the job markets improvement.

When I took office, businesses were laying off 800,000 Americans a month. Today, our businesses are hiring 200,000 Americans a month, Mr. Obama said Thursday, in a speech at Northwestern University near Chicago.

A political challenge, however, is that the economy still isnt nearly as strong as Americans would like and the presidents popularity is also suffering from other factors like handling of foreign policy that have nothing to do with the economy.

Although unemployment has fallen sharply from its post-recession high of about 10 percent, the total share of Americans who have jobs has recovered only modestly to 59 percent of adults, down from about 63 percent just before the recession.

Part of that reflects the demographics of the baby boom, as more Americans are hittingretirement age.But it also reflects an economy where many potential workers arent optimistic enough to even look for work. Those on the sidelines arent counted in the official unemployment rate.

The rest is here:
Unemployment drops below 6 percent: Can it help Democrats? (+video)