In the first 12 months of Joe Biden’s presidency, the United States added 6.6 million jobs, the greatest increase of any president.
Positive readings in the January jobs report helped showed that Biden emerge with a new 6.6 million jobs mark.
Even without them, he would have achieved this milestone, Independent reported.
Jimmy Carter held the previous record when he added 3.9 million jobs in his first 12 months in office.
By comparison, Donald Trump’s first 12 months in office notched a gain of 2 million jobs.
Since 1939, when Franklin Roosevelt was in his seventh year in office, the Labor Department has been collecting jobs data.
There has never been a president other than Carter who added half as many jobs as Biden did during his first year; Bill Clinton added 2.8 million jobs.
From January 2021, when Biden became president, jobs are up by 4.6%.
The gain is the second-best of all time, just behind Carter’s 4.8% gain.
The only other president to crack the 3% mark was Lyndon Johnson, with a 3.4% gain in his first 12 months in office after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.
The recovery of the economy from the pandemic in 2020 has helped Biden. Last year, the economy grew by 5.7%, which was the best growth rate since the end of Ronald Reagan’s first term.
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Everything Depends On Timing
It was a matter of timing when Biden took office. Then, the vaccine was available and the economy was in the throes of natural recovery when he took office.
Looking at a first-year employment record, timing is everything. Barack Obama, for example, lost 4.3 million jobs in his first year in office, the worst record of any president. In the depths of the Great Recession, more than 700,000 jobs were being lost each month.
Over the course of his first 12 months in office, he lost more than half of the jobs in the first three months. The job count remained largely unchanged for the 12th month of his tenure.
“That’s the rule of presidential history: We tend to over-credit presidents when the economy is good and beat them to a pulp when it’s bad,” Rice University professor Douglas Brinkley said.
The massive $1.9 trillion pandemic relief package signed by Biden in March of last year has been widely credited for the strong job gains since he took office, according to some economists.
Moody’s Analytics’ chief economist Mark Zandi commented on the unprecedented amount of stimulus pumped into the economy.
Despite the fact that the economy would have added nearly 3 million jobs without the stimulus package, 3.7 million jobs were likely created under Biden because of that unprecedented level of stimulus.
“It was a big package. It was supporting demand. It supercharged the economy,” he stated.
In the midst of the pandemic, direct cash payments to most households increased unemployment benefits, and assistance to cities and towns was introduced.
Public Opinion Polls Were Poor
However, Biden seems to receive relatively little credit for the improvement in the labor market.
CNN’s poll showed 39 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s job performance, while 55 percent disapprove – one of the poorest ratings of any president for their first year in office.
As for Biden’s economic handling, a recent NBC poll has him rated 38% favorably and 60% unfavorably.
The biggest problem facing the president is inflation stands at a 39-year high.
In the past year, 6.6 million jobs have been created, which might be good for those who work in them, but they still only represent a very small part of the total workforce.
A vast range of goods and services are being priced higher, resulting in pain felt by virtually everyone.
Biden took time Friday to highlight his first-year accomplishments:
“America is back to work,” he stated.
“History has been made here. I’m proud of the role the administration’s …economic plan has played in this recovery.”
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Inflationary pain might be a concern for Biden. Meanwhile, his predecessor, Jimmy Carter, was not generally considered to have had a good economic record because inflation plagued throughout most of his term was much higher than it is now.
To date, it is known that a major reason why Carter did not win reelection in 1980 was the economic downturn.
