Could it make a difference in American politics if a record number of jobs were created but no one heard it or believed it?
Joe Biden’s Friday morning announcement of historic job gains and a low unemployment rate of 4% was delivered through gritted teeth by a leader who appears annoyed that he has to explain to the public why the figures are encouraging, USNEWS reported.
Biden said in remarks at the White House that more than 6.6 million jobs have been created since he took the oath of office, which was well above the slight gain or possible loss of up to 300,000 jobs that was expected.
“You can’t remember another year when so many people went to work in this country. There’s a reason. It never happened,” Biden stated.
“History has been made here,” he continued, emphasizing his point.
“It’s the strongest economic growth this country has seen in nearly 40 years.”
That was cause for celebration among Democrats and Biden supporters. It was treated as an asterisk by Republicans who contend that inflation and supply-chain issues are the real economic issues for average Americans.
Caricature of the Democratic Party
Biden’s poor approval ratings on the economy haven’t improved despite the job growth trends.
A recent Quinnipiac poll shows 30% of Americans describe the economy as excellent or good, and 68% as fair or poor. According to that survey, while Biden’s first year was marked by record economic growth and job creation, only 36% approve of his handling of the economy, while 57% disapprove it.
Similar results have been reported in other polls. For instance, a CNBC/Change poll conducted in January found that 47% of Americans feel the stock market is not doing well, compared with 24% in January of last year.
Stocks are, however, much stronger now than they were a year ago. CNBC/Change conducted its survey in mid-December 2021, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached 35,897. According to the stock market average for the previous year of the same week, it was 29,861.
Inflation has contributed to Biden’s problems.
People “may be getting decent pay increases, but it’s not keeping up with inflation,” explains Naroff Economics president Joel Naroff.
“Put together with rising gas prices, and it’s a ‘bad economy.’’
Additionally, final employment numbers do not often get as much media attention as preliminary estimates, which have been disappointing in recent months before being revised upward as final figures came in.
The preliminary estimates of job growth last summer vastly overstated the situation – and Biden’s approval ratings on the economy were higher. To the 448,000 jobs initially reported for November and December, final figures show an increase of 709,000 jobs. Analysts say the public’s perception was shaped by earlier numbers.
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Erica Groshen, a former Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, attributes the under- and overestimation of monthly jobs reports to the flu. As a result of people not acting in typical ways during the pandemic, the bureau has to make “seasonal adjustments” to its calculations.
Despite this, the year is largely balanced.
“Despite the craziness of 2020, the payroll numbers were almost right on the dot, in terms of total jobs created,” Groshen said.
Additionally, the ADP National Employment Report, which predicts non-farm employment numbers, sets a benchmark for what economists and reporters expect from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Weak results came in from that report, released on Wednesday, added fuel to the poor jobs forecast.
Just before Fox News announced the 467,000 number, it aired a segment in which it predicted bad economic news, using the chyron;
“January jobs report predicted to be the worst in years.” It was predicted that the economy would lose up to 300,000 jobs.
Immediately following the announcement of the actual numbers, the chyron changed. “How did everybody get this so wrong?” it asked.
Most of the reaction to these numbers is partisan. “Biden boom,” Sen. Cory Booker, New Jersey Democrat, tweeted after reading the record-high number of jobs.
RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, also, tweeted out an early story on a poll and said, “a staggering 75% of Americans view the economy as ‘not so good/poor’ – and Biden is to blame.”
Opinions about Biden’s handling of the economy are strongly correlated with political ideology. An Economist-YouGov poll found that 25% of Americans rated Biden’s economy performance “good” or “fair,” while 70% rated it “fair” or “poor.”
Among Democrats, 46% rated Biden as “excellent” or “good” on the economy, while only 11% of Republicans agreed. In 2020, 47% of those who voted for Biden gave him positive ratings on the economy. Meanwhile, Trump voters rated him positively on the economy by 7%.
Whatever their financial situation may be, “They may say things are really terrible because Republicans are not in power,” Naroff says. “It’s not even being a Republican. If you’re a Trump person, no matter what happens, it’s terrible.”