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ByJoshBoak The Associated Press WASHINGTON A surpris- ingly robust job market is energizing the 5-year-old U.S. recovery and driving the economy closer to full health. E mployer s a dde d 288,000 jobs in June and helped cut the unemploy- ment rate to 6.1 percent, the lowest since 2008. It was the fifth straight gain above 200,000 — the best such stretch since the late 1990s tech boom. The stock market sig- naled its approval. The Dow Jones industrial aver- age surged 92 points to top 17,000 for the first time. The breadth and consis- tency of the job growth are striking in part because of how poorly the year began. The economy shrank at a steep 2.9 percent annual rate in the January-March quarter as a harsh winter contributed to the sharp- est contraction since the depths of the recession. Yet employers have shrugged off that setback. They've kept hiring. The unemployment rate dipped from 6.3 percent in May to its lowest level since the financial crisis struck with full force in the fall of 2008, when the Wall Street firm Lehman Brothers went bankrupt. "This has now become a textbook jobs expan- sion," said Patrick O'Keefe, director of economic re- search at the consultancy CohnReznick. "It is both broad and accelerating." At least one nagging doubt is dampening the en- thusiasm: Can the stepped- up hiring lead to higher in- comes? Wages have yet to outpace inflation for most workers. Eventually, ana- lysts say, the falling unem- ployment rate should cause pay to rise more sharply. But no one knows precisely when. The jobs report did make clear that, five years af- ter the recession officially ended, the U.S. economy is showing more vitality even as major economies in Eu- rope and Asia continue to struggle. Last month's solid hiring followed gains of 217,000 jobs in May and 304,000 in April, figures that were revised upward by a com- bined 29,000. Over the past 12 months, the economy has added nearly 2.5 million jobs — an average of 208,000 a month, the fastest year-over-year pace since 2006. Economists say the steady U.S. hiring should fuel more purchases of goods from Asia and Europe and strengthen those economies at least slightly. Much of Eu- rope is suffering from high unemployment. And China is trying to moderate its economy's growth without slowing it too much. "If we have some momen- tum going into the second half of the year, it helps the world economy because we're big consumers," said Stuart Hoffman, chief econ- omist at PNC Financial Ser- vices. The U.S. job gains in June were widespread. Factories added 16,000 workers, re- tailers 40,200. Financial and insurance firms in- creased their payrolls by 17,000. Restaurants and bars employed 32,800 more people. Only construction, which gained a mere 6,000, reflected the slow recovery of previous years. Local governments added 18,000 education workers. But that might have been a quirk: Many schools that had been closed for snow days stayed open longer than usual in June, said Diane Swonk, chief econo- mist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago. Over the past three months, job growth has av- eraged a healthy 272,000. And in May, the economy surpassed the jobs total from December 2007, when the Great Recession offi- cially began. Researchers at the liberal Economic Policy Institute estimate that 6.7 million more jobs would have been needed to keep up with U.S. population growth. One key challenge is whether the job gains will pull more Americans back into the workforce. Many people who lost jobs dur- ing the recession and were never rehired have stopped looking for work. Just 62.8 percent of American adults are working or are looking for a job, compared with 66 percent before the down- turn. The number of long-term unemployed has dropped 1.2 million over the past year to just under 3.1 mil- lion. But the government data suggests that numer- ous people without jobs have given up their searches — a trend that could drag on future U.S. growth. And average pay has grown just 2 percent a year during the recovery, roughly in line with infla- tion and below the long-run average annual growth of about 3.5 percent. The lack of strong wage growth means the Federal Reserve may not feel pres- sure to start raising short- term interest rates soon as a way of controlling inflation. UNEMPLOYMENT RATE Jobs report shows US recovery is accelerating TONYDEJAK‑THEASSOCIATEDPRESS People wait in line for the Cleveland Career Fair in Independence, Ohio. The Labor Department released employment data for June on Thursday. GREGORY BULL — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Retired Marine Gunnery Sgt. Brian Meyer awaits treatment at the Naval Medical Center in San Diego on May 23. Meyer lost his right leg above the knee, his right hand above the wrist, and three fingers on his le hand while disarming a bomb in Afghanistan in 2011. By Julie Watson The Associated Press SAN DIEGO The blood is not the most jarring part of the photograph taken shortly after the bomb blew off Marine Gunnery Sgt. Brian Meyer's leg and hand. It's his smile. The bomb technician had asked a team mem- ber to take the picture. He knew his defiance in the face of death would keep his comrades going and ease the torment caused by what they had witnessed. His attitude set the tone for the long journey the double amputee is taking along with nearly 2,000 troops who lost one or more limbs from combat injuries in Iraq and Af- ghanistan. It's also pushing mili- tary medicine to find bet- ter ways to accommodate such a large population of young, severely disabled combat veterans who want to maintain an active life- style. Many wear out their prosthetic limbs in a mat- ter of months doing ev- erything from mountain climbing to running mar- athons. With survival rates reaching historic highs during the two wars, the Naval Health Re- search Center is launch- ing a major, six-year study on wounded warriors to track their quality of life and better understand the road to recovery. So far, 1,500 people have signed up for the Wounded Warrior Recovery Project study. The Navy aims to recruit 10,000. About 50,000 military personnel have been in- jured in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, with 16,000 hurt so se- verely that they likely would not have survived previous conflicts. Doctors say a positive attitude is key to recovery, so the study will also ex- amine mental resilience and why some troops have it and others don't. It will rely on Web-based, tele- phone and mailed sur- veys conducted every six months about mobility, ability to function and so- cial activity. Researchers will also analyze military databases detailing clini- cal encounters with each service member injured while deployed. Thestudyaimstoprovide one of the broadest reviews yetofhowpost9-11veterans with a variety of combat in- juries are coping and enjoy- ing life, and how much their quality of life impacts their long-term care. Meyer is not yet part of the study but intends to participate. His case was featured in the New Eng- land Journal of Medicine in May to demonstrate the success of battlefield trauma care over the past decade. The retired Marine has benefited from a host of new medical strategies used by the military, in- cluding laser treatments. Cmdr. Peter Shumaker, chief of dermatology at Naval Medical Center San Diego, helped pioneer the use of an ablative laser — commonly used to smooth wrinkled or acne-scarred skin — to ease Meyer's scar tissue, dramatically im- proving the range of mo- tion in his fingers, among other things. "It's a privilege to work with soldiers and Ma- rines, like Brian, because they're young and moti- vated and healthy and they can go farther than we ever thought," Shumaker said. "They don't want to just walk, they want to do things that their col- leagues are doing, their friends are doing." Meyer was hospitalized for a month after the 2011 bomb blast in Afghani- stan. He lost his right leg above the knee, and his right hand above the wrist. Only his pinky and ring finger remained intact on his left hand. After multiple surgeries, he was outfitted for pros- thetics and learned to walk again. But Meyer, 29 at the time, wanted full indepen- dence. He turned down of- fers to install wheelchair ramps in his home. He debated before accepting a handicap parking per- mit. He did not want to avoid the struggle to rein- tegrate. He wanted to go anywhere. "I focus on what I have left, not what I lost," Meyer said. His prosthetic arm has a flashlight so at night he can see where he plants his prosthetic foot. His pros- thetic arm has the knobs and battery pack posi- tioned to one side so he can shoot a bow and ar- row. Thanks to the laser treatments on his scar tissue, he can now hold a toothbrush, write with a pen, dial his phone, and pull the trigger of a hunt- ing rifle. Laser treatments also removed a sore, allow- ing him to withstand his prosthetic leg for 18 hours a day. Shumaker and Dr. Chad Hivnor, who recently re- tired from Lackland Air Force Base, helped pioneer the method. Hivnor also discovered botulinum toxin A injections decrease per- spiration where the pros- thetic limb attaches, help- ing stop it from slipping off while the person is exercis- ing or in hot climates. The findings were re- cently presented to the American Academy of Dermatology to promote the treatment for severely scarred people in the gen- eral population. "These are not spe- cial, scar lasers or special, wounded warrior lasers," Shumaker said. "We've taken these techniques that are primarily used for cosmetic purposes and al- tered them a bit to apply to trauma rehabilitation." Such unconventional treatments make a big dif- ference in daily life, veter- ans and their doctors say. One soldier's scar tissue has softened so he can grasp his daughter's hand; another can now type. A week after a recent treatment, Meyers rode on his motorcycle through a shopping district in Mur- rieta, 60 miles northeast of San Diego. His pinky and ring finger operated the throttle that has been put on the left side because he only has a left wrist. It has a side car that can carry another amputee, wheel- chair or his dog. Young, active war wounded pushing medical science VETERANS The Associated Press ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. A vet- eran who collapsed in an Al- buquerque Veteran Affairs hospital cafeteria, 500 yards from the emergency room, died after waiting 30 min- utes for an ambulance, of- ficials confirmed Thursday. Officials at the hospital said it took a half an hour for the ambulance to be dis- patched and take the man from one building to the other, which is about a five minute walk. VA spokeswoman Sonja Brown said Kirtland Air Force Medical Group per- sonnel performed CPR un- til the ambulance arrived. She says staff followed policy in calling 911 when the man collapsed on Mon- day. "Our policy is under expedited review," Brown said. The man's name hasn't been released. The death comes at the Department of Veterans Af- fairs remains under scru- tiny for widespread reports of long delays for treatment and medical appointments and of veterans dying while on waiting lists. A review last week cited "significant and chronic sys- tem failures" in the nation's health system for veterans. The review also portrayed the struggling agency as one battling a corrosive culture of distrust, lacking in resources and ill-pre- pared to deal with an in- flux of new and older vet- erans with a range of med- ical and mental health care needs. The scathing report by deputy White House chief of staff Rob Nabors said the Veterans Health Adminis- tration, the VA sub agency that provides health care to about 8.8 million vet- erans a year, has system- atically ignored warnings about its deficiencies and must be fundamentally re- structured. HEALTH CARE Ve teran dies waiting for ambulance in VA hospital By Julie Pace The Associated Press WASHINGTON President Barack Obama is facing mounting calls from Re- publicans to take a first- hand look at the immigra- tion emergency at the U.S.- Mexico border, putting him on the spot concerning what he has called the "hu- manitarian crisis" of tens of thousands of unaccom- panied children flooding in from Central America. "If he doesn't come to the border, I think it's a real re- flection of his lack of con- cern of what's really going on there," declares Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a possible GOP presidential candidate in 2016. The White House said Friday that Obama cur- rently has no plans to visit the border when he travels to Texas next week, primar- ily to fundraise for Demo- cratic congressional candi- dates. A trip to the border could result in awkward op- tics for the president, who would be unlikely to meet with youngsters he's seek- ing to deport and would risk upsetting immigra- tion advocates who oppose the deportations if he were to meet with border patrol agents or other law enforce- ment. Administration officials say that Perry and other Republicans are merely trying to score political points rather than working to resolve a major problem. But the political concerns aren't so easily dismissed for Obama. The White House also wants to keep the focus of the debate in this midterm election year on Republican lawmakers whom the pres- ident has accused of block- ing progress on a compre- hensive overhaul of Amer- ica's immigration laws. Obama announced this week that, due to a lack of progress on Capitol Hill, he was moving forward to seek out ways to adjust U.S. im- migration policy without congressional approval. Obama's options for that range from relatively mod- est changes in deporta- tion procedures to broader moves that could shield mil- lions of people in the U.S. illegally from deportation while giving them tempo- rary authorization to work here. Immigration advocates emerged from a meeting with Obama this week convinced that the presi- dent was at least consider- ing the more aggressive ap- proach. The advocates are push- ing Obama to provide work permits to the up to 9 mil- lion people who would have been eligible for cit- izenship under a compre- hensive immigration bill passed by the Senate a year ago that stalled in the GOP- led House. Short of that, advocates want Obama to extend a "deferred ac- tion" program to all immi- grants in the U.S. illegally who have children who are American citizens because they were born in the U.S. That program currently al- lows many young immi- grants who arrived in the United States as children before June 15, 2007, to ap- ply for work permits and two-year reprieves from de- portation. IMMIGRATION Ob am a un de r pr es su re t o vi si t US -M ex ic o bo rd er JACQUELYN MARTIN — THE ASSOCIATED PRESS President Barack Obama, accompanied by Vice President Joe Biden, pause while making a statement about immigration reform, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington on June 30. | NEWS | REDBLUFFDAILYNEWS.COM FRIDAY, JULY 4, 2014 8 A