WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Joe Biden says the August jobs report, which underwhelmed many economists, is another step forward in the nation’s economic recovery.

The economy generated only 142,000 jobs, the fewest in eight months.

In the weekly White House radio and Internet address, Biden says job growth continues but warns that the wages of middle-class Americans are being left behind other indicators of economic growth.

Biden says it’s long past time to, quote, “cut the middle class back into the deal.”

He says doing that requires a fair tax structure that values paychecks as much as unearned income and inherited wealth.

In the Republican address, the GOP candidate for Senate in Alaska, Dan Sullivan, says the federal government is an obstacle to progress in his state — and calls that a national problem, too.

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Online:

White House address: http://www.whitehouse.gov

Republican address: https://www.youtube.com/user/gopweeklyaddress

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