The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that there were 187,000 jobs added to the economy in July, which was lower than expected.
Additionally, BLS revised down the number of jobs added to the economy in May and June.
Further, the average number of hours Americans worked fell to 34.3 hours, which is the lowest level since 2020.
The good news is the unemployment rate fell from 3.6 percent to 3.5 percent, which is one of the lowest readings since the 1960s.
Economists had forecast 200,000 jobs being added in July, so the official tally missed that mark, according to Reuters.
BLS reported that the total number of jobs added in May was lowered by 25,000 from 306,000 to 281,000, and the total in June was reduced by 24,000 from 209,000 to 185,000.
That makes the job growth in June the lowest since December 2020 during the height of the pandemic.
Again on a positive note, hourly earnings rose 14 cents in July, or 0.4 percent, to $33.74 per hour. And over the last 12 months, wages are up 4.4 percent, according to BLS.
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The labor participation rate — the percentage of the population working or looking for work — was 62.6 percent last month for the fifth month in a row.
By comparison, it was 63.4 percent in February 2020, prior to the pandemic shutdowns.
President Joe Biden touted the July jobs numbers tweeting, “Our economy added 187,000 jobs last month, and we’ve added 13.4 million jobs since I took office. That’s Bidenomics.”
Our economy added 187,000 jobs last month, and we’ve added 13.4 million jobs since I took office.
That’s Bidenomics. pic.twitter.com/o97NAH69d5
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) August 4, 2023
Fact-checkers have noted in the past that Biden’s jobs created since taking office number is misleading.
Those jobs, in large measure, don’t really represent new jobs created under Biden. It took until this September 2022 for the number of jobs in the U.S. to reach the pre-pandemic level it was at under former President Donald Trump, according to FactCheck.org.
About 10 million of the 13.4 million he cited were needed to get the workforce back to where it was in February 2020.
Robert Frick with Navy Federal Credit Union told Marketplace last summer there is still much ground to be made up.
“Yeah, we’re back to the pre-pandemic level,” he said. “But if you look to the pre-pandemic trend, we’re 4 or 5 million jobs below that.”
Reuters pointed out, “The economy needs to create roughly 100,000 jobs per month to keep up with growth in the working-age population.”
Larry Kudlow, who served as Trump’s top White House economist, argued that Bidenomics is not working and is unsustainable over the long term.
“The problem here is that Joe Bidenomics is producing massive government spending, which may be responsible for as much as 45 percent in the recent rise in the economy,” he said on his Fox Business Network program “Kudlow” Tuesday.
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“All those deficits, debt borrowing could force the Fed to print too much cash, drive up commodities, drive down the dollar. In other words Mr. President, you’re inflating while the Fed is trying to deflate,” Kudlow added.
He concluded, “It’s going to lead to a long-run American decline, which is tragic.”
The Congressional Budget Office estimates the federal deficit for fiscal year 2023 will be $1.5 trillion, which is up from the $984 billion in FY 2019 prior to the pandemic.
