On Friday, Biden said the number of new jobs indicates "the great American comeback continues."
"When I took office, I inherited an economy on the brink, with the worst economic crisis in a century. I had a plan to turn our country around and build our economy from the middle out and the bottom up," the president said in a statement. "Now we are seeing that plan in action."
Biden then pointed to "well over 15 million jobs created" since he took office, while he says working-age women are employed at a record high rate, wages are rising faster than prices, and unemployment is below 4% percent for a record 27 months in a row.
Um … not so fast, Mr. President
Economist EJ Antoni of The Heritage Foundation challenges the president's interpretation of the latest jobs report.
"It's very easy to say that you 'inherited an economy that was on the brink,' but that is not what the facts say," says Antoni. "The economy was not on the brink of failure [when Biden took office], it was on the brink of success. It was growing at a $1.5 trillion annualized rate."
Elaine Parker is chief communications officer for Job Creators Network. In an interview with AFN, she argues that the jobs report "confirms the economy is re-entering stagflation."
"Only 175,000 jobs were created last month, which is well below the recent average and the expectations," she notes. The Marketwatch forecast for the April Jobs Report was 240,000.
"When you combine that with slow economic growth and the resurgent inflation that we're seeing," Parker continues, "these jobs numbers suggest stagflation has returned as a result of these bad Democratic policies that we continue to see out of the Biden administration."
Parker points out that inflation was below 2% when Biden took office.
"That's what Joe Biden inherited," she points out. "We were on track for the one of the fastest recoveries from that until he came in on Day 1 and canceled the Keystone Pipeline and began an all-out war on domestic energy that destabilized really the entire country as far as our energy production and created inflation like we have not seen in decades."
How about those 'created' jobs?
As for the millions of jobs "created," Antoni adds that the country has seen tens of millions of people going back to work after the government told them it was illegal to work.
"So, of course, you're going to see record job growth," Antoni emphasizes. "I don't understand how anyone could possibly see this as anything other than a lie."
Parker concurs with Antoni's remarks. "The bulk of the jobs that Joe Biden claims have been created under his administration were back-filled jobs," she explains.
"That is, the jobs that have come back … were lost during the pandemic, when the federal government was shutting down businesses across the country and telling small businesses that they were not essential and telling large companies that they were essential and could stay open."
According to the jobs report, black unemployment remains higher than the national rate. The same goes for Hispanics and teenagers.
