President Joe Biden played up his economic agenda in a speech touting August’s jobs report.
Biden took credit for helping the economy recover from pandemic-related shutdowns and for creating 1 million jobs beyond pre-coronavirus levels.
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“People are coming off the sidelines, getting back to their workplaces,” he said. “Job satisfaction is higher than it’s been in 36 years.”
The president also touted record low unemployment rates for black people, Hispanic people, women, military veterans, and workers without a high school diploma.
“We came into office to build the economy in a different way,” Biden said, “from the middle out and the bottom up.”
The economy added 187,000 jobs in August, beating expectations, though gains from previous months were revised downward and the overall trend is toward slower growth. Monthly job growth is about half of what it was at the start of the year.
Conservatives criticized the figures as a sign that the economy is slowing.
“Given the challenges facing American small businesses, which create two-thirds of new jobs, this labor market weakness is no surprise,” Job Creators Network CEO Alfredo Ortiz said. “Small businesses are facing a one-two punch of high inflation and high interest rates due to Bidenomics. President Biden and Congressional Democrats are directly responsible for this difficult economic environment due to their reckless spending and anti-energy industrial policy.”
The unemployment rate also rose slightly to 3.8%, though it remains near historic lows.
One big question going forward is whether or not the figures will cause the Federal Reserve to continue raising interest rates. Annual inflation has fallen from more than 9% last year to just over 3% this June, though it rose slightly in July. The Fed’s target inflation rate is 2%.
The president did not respond to shouted questions from the press, including one about why so many people were living paycheck to paycheck. His remarks were also delayed by nearly an hour after being originally scheduled for 11:15 a.m.
Another metric the Biden administration will watch closely is mortgage rates, which are now above 7% for the first time since 2000. That high figure will make homeownership more difficult to achieve and more expensive to maintain for new buyers, though leaders hope it will also push home prices down.
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Biden and his aides have been aggressively promoting the term “Bidenomics” since midsummer, highlighting the positives within the economy amid polls showing that most voters don’t feel great about his handling of it.
“We’re the United States of America. There is simply nothing beyond our capacity when we do things together,” Biden said.
