President Barack Obama will speak in Elkhart, Indiana at 3:25 p.m. today. The topic of the speech will be the improving economy since he took office in 2009.
Elkhart is a familiar place for Obama. Just over two weeks after he took office, Obama visited the city, which is just south of South Bend and has a population of around 50,000 people. Unemployment peaked at 20 percent when Obama first spoke there seven years ago, but is now at 4 percent, reports The New York Times.
In an email, Obama said that Elkhart’s success is the “story of America’s recovery.”
The president continued:
Today, Elkhart’s manufacturing industry is back, and the town has regained nearly all of the jobs it lost during the downturn. The unemployment rate is lower than it was before the recession, and lower than the national average. In Indiana, more people have health insurance, and fewer homeowners are underwater.
According to the IndyStar, Elkhart’s success is mostly tied to the booming RV industry. The city has struggled to diversify its job force though, with 60 percent of its jobs in the RV industry. That’s down from 70 percent in 2009.
“I can’t say I believe he’s truly responsible for the recovery,” Mark Landis of Siemens Healthineers USA told the IndyStar. “However, the exposure of Elkhart County to the world because of his visits really gave Elkhart an opportunity to tell the world, ‘We’re not dead. We’re open for business. Come see us.'”