Friday’s surprisingly strong jobs report gave a boost to President Biden, who at a time when voters were hesitant to manage the economy.
Despite negative economic growth, the report suggested that the United States was not in recession. And it underscores the strength of the labor market, one of the president’s biggest economic bragging points. The report, analysts at Capital Economics wrote in a research note Friday morning, “appears to make a mockery of claims that the economy is already headed for a recession.”
But about inflation in the Labor Department release Mr. There have been warning signs for Biden, which has kicked his legs off his approval ratings this year.
The continued fast pace of job growth, along with faster-than-expected wage gains for workers, is likely to feed the Federal Reserve’s willingness to raise interest rates aggressively to curb price growth. Those rates increase the risk of putting the brakes on the economy and driving up unemployment.
Mr. Biden celebrated Friday’s report, noting that “in the second quarter of this year, we created more jobs than in any quarter under my predecessors in nearly 40 years before the pandemic.”
Despite strong job growth and low unemployment, Mr. Biden’s approval ratings have plummeted in 2020 after the pandemic recession, while he praised the strength of the labor market and a quick return to low unemployment, but he has repeatedly said his top economic priority is fighting inflation.
But former Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Some economists, such as Summers, have criticized Mr. They have warned that Biden’s dreams are in jeopardy. To control inflation, they say, the unemployment rate must rise, putting millions of Americans out of work.
Mr. Biden and his aides insist that’s not the case, arguing that the economy will slow down to slower job growth and lower unemployment.
The president and his team have spent months trying to portray the slowdown in job growth as a healthy sign that the economy is recovering from a pandemic recession from rapid growth, high inflation, and transition to a new era of slower growth with more stable prices. .
Mr. Biden reiterated that on Friday. “Additional job growth from this strong position will slow,” he said. “This is not a bad thing, because our economy should move towards sustainable growth in the coming years.”
