WASHINGTON—President Joe Biden touted his economic performance on Friday following the August jobs report in a speech at the White House, replying to his predecessor’s claim that he presided over greater employment gains.
The U.S. economy added 187,000 jobs in August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), exceeding the consensus estimates. Even though this marked the third-weakest jobs report under President Biden, it was still interpreted as a sign of a resilient labor market.
The overall number of jobs increased above pre-pandemic levels last year, and it was roughly 4 million higher in August 2023 than it was in February 2020.
America is experiencing its strongest job-creating period ever, President Biden said in a speech in the Rose Garden.
“It wasn’t that long ago that America was losing jobs. In fact, my predecessor was one of only two presidents in history who entered his presidency and left with fewer jobs than when he entered,” he added.
The president highlighted the 13.5 million new jobs created by employers since he took office in January 2021.
However, some claim that President Biden is falsely attributing all of the credit to his policies and neglecting to take into account the return to work as a result of the reopening of businesses, the government, and schools after the pandemic-related shutdowns in 2020.
Indeed, the economy was improving, and job creation had begun before he took office.
The U.S. economy lost about 22 million jobs from February to April 2020 due to lockdowns, but it recovered 12 million jobs by December that year under former President Donald Trump.
Clash Over Jobs Growth
The former president, who is seeking the Republican nomination for president in 2024, recently stated that President Biden’s record of job creation pales in comparison to his own.
The U.S. economy added roughly 5.4 million jobs in the first 30 months of his term, a period that predates the pandemic.
In comparison, President Trump claims that only 2.1 million new jobs were created during President Biden’s first 30 months in office.
The Trump campaign later told PolitiFact, a fact-checking website, that the figure was derived without counting workers returning from pandemic layoffs.
President Biden, however, disagrees and believes he deserves all the credit for the job recovery due to his policies.
“We created more jobs in two years than a president ever created in a single four-year term. We did it in two years,” President Biden said during his Rose Garden speech. “We recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic.”
The president also believes that the Inflation Reduction Act, one of his key legislative wins, will create more than 1.5 million jobs over the next decade by making the largest investment in clean energy and tackling climate change.
Labor Force Participation
The BLS data released on Friday also showed that people are coming off the sidelines and joining the workforce.
The labor force participation rate, which measures the proportion of Americans who work or are searching for jobs, edged up to 62.8 percent.
Despite the uptick in August, the participation rate remains below the pre-pandemic level of 63.3 percent in February 2020.
According to the August jobs report, the unemployment rate rose to 3.8 percent, up from 3.5 percent in July. This is the highest level since February last year, while still low relative to previous years.
Stoyan Panayotov, founder and CEO of Babylon Wealth Management in California, believes the rise in the unemployment rate is a good sign.
“Unemployment is rising because more Americans are returning to work,” he wrote in a note to clients, referring to the increase in labor force participation.
According to Deutsche Bank economists, the latest jobs report shows that supply and demand in the labor market are “making progress towards better balance.”
However, in a recent report, they estimated that 100 million people are not in the labor force, which is 5 million more than the pre-COVID level.
The report also showed that job creation growth was the highest in industries that were hardest hit by the pandemic. Hence, job growth is concentrated in a few industries, such as leisure and hospitality, as well as education and health care.
From The Epoch Times
