Economists explained to the Daily Caller News Foundation that the Biden administration’s often-cited talking point about employment boom is false. Instead, it’s simply a natural recovery after pandemic losses. Despite consecutive quarters with negative gross domestic product growth (GDP), sky-high inflation and plummeting consumer confidence, the Biden administration routinely highlighted strong job creation and low unemployment as positive outcomes of President Joe Biden’s economic stewardship. The idea that this is a sign of booming job creation can be misleading as the economy has only rebounded through the addition of jobs lost in the pandemic.
“President Biden doesn’t have much to boast about when it comes job creation. Alfredo Ortiz (president of the Job Creators Network), told the DCNF that we are still many thousands short of pre-pandemic levels. The Labor Force Participation rate remains catastrophically low. It is lower than pre-pandemic and it is much lower than 10 years ago. This is why the unemployment rate of 3.6% is misleading – it excludes those who can and should be working but have dropped out of the labor force.”
The Labor Force Participation Rate for June stood at 62.2%, down over 1% from 63.4% in February 2020, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
” “Our employment market is still strong with 3.6% unemployment and over 1,000,000 jobs created in just the second quarter,” Biden stated following Thursday’s disappointing GDP report. (RELATED: ‘A Definite Slowdown’: Business Owners Say They’re Already Seeing Signs Of Recession)
The June 2022 Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Employment Situation report found that the U.S. economy still has over 500,000, or 0.3%, fewer jobs than its pre-pandemic level in February 2020.
152.5 million people were employed right before the Lockdowns.
151.9 million were employed last month.
If there are no net jobs for more than 2 years, it isn’t a recession.
I do actually know 6 months of economic activity/negative GDP. pic.twitter.com/MYw9gHInfJ
— Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) July 28, 2022
“After an unprecedented economic shutdown, you would expect unprecedented job growth – there’s nothing noteworthy in that,” E.J. The Heritage Foundation’s research fellow in regional economics, Antoni told the DCNF.
“Biden should not be playing this game because it’s an absurd argument, but also because he still loses even under his own bizarre rules,” Antoni said, adding that the pandemic recovery under Trump created 12.5 million jobs, or an average of 1.4 million a month, while the Biden administration has added 9.0 million jobs, an average of roughly 500,000 a month. “So, Biden has taken twice as long as Trump, yet added 25% fewer jobs.”
The coronavirus pandemic caused the labor market to collapse, and a historically-low unemployment rate of 3.5% in February 2020 ballooned up to 14.7% in April 2020, the highest rate since the Great Depression, according to the American Enterprise Institute. In the eight months remaining in Trump’s presidency, the unemployment rate decreased to 6.3% by January 2021.
In the first 18 months of the Biden administration, the unemployment rate has gone from 6.3% in January 2021 to 3.6% in June 2022.
Other economists see the fact that the unemployment rate is close to pre-pandemic levels as an indication of a healthy economy.
“This doesn’t necessarily look like a dire situation, despite the fact that we’re struggling with inflation and economic declines in some other dimensions,” University of North Carolina professor Christian Lundblad told The New York Times.
The White House didn’t respond to the DCNF’s request for comment.
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