President Biden, who has argued recently that the United States is not in a recession despite suffering two consecutive quarters of economic contraction, was relieved by the positive jobs data.
The report, however, appeared to contradict the administration’s hypothesis about the direction of the economy and even the president’s own hopeful views about the health of the labour market.
Mr. Biden celebrated the report on Friday morning. “Today, the unemployment rate matches the lowest it’s been in more than 50 years: 3.5 percent,” he said in a statement. “More people are working than at any point in American history.”
He added: “There’s more work to do, but today’s jobs report shows we are making significant progress for working families.”
The president has been predicting for months that as the economy shifts to a more stable state of slower growth and lower inflation, job creation will eventually slow down, along with wage and price rise.
“If average monthly job creation shifts in the next year from current levels of 500,000 to something closer to 150,000,” Mr. Biden wrote in an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal in May, “it will be a sign that we are successfully moving into the next phase of recovery — as this kind of job growth is consistent with a low unemployment rate and a healthy economy.”
In keeping with Vice President Biden’s predictions, White House officials prepared reporters this week for the potential that employment growth was slowing. The record-breaking amount of jobs created appeared to stun them once more.
However, Mr. Biden would almost probably point to the statistics as proof that the economy is far from entering a recession. He and his staff have made this claim numerous times in recent weeks, arguing that it is evidence that the country is not in a recession even if the gross domestic product is contracting and that the current rate of employment growth is out of step with that of previous recessions.
Aryan Jakhar works as an Editor-in-Chief at The Shining Media. Also, he is an editor at YouthPolitician (digital media situated in Taiwan). He writes his opinions on social issues at YouthKiAwaaz and also on his blogger website.
