Biden Takes Victory Lap on 390K May Jobs Report and 8.7 Million Jobs Since Taking Office: ‘An All-Time Record’
President Joe Biden gave remarks about the better-than-expected May jobs report that showed 390,000 jobs created and an unemployment rate of 3.6 percent.
On Friday morning at 8:30 a.m., the Bureau of Labor Statistics dropped its hotly-anticipated May Employment Situation Summary, which featured some encouraging toplines:
Total nonfarm payroll employment rose by 390,000 in May, and the unemployment rate remained at 3.6 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
Notable job gains occurred in leisure and hospitality, in professional and business services, and in transportation and warehousing. Employment in retail trade declined.
The jobs number is well above the Dow Jones estimate of 328,000, but also represents a slight cooling from several consecutive months of jobs creation in excess of 400,000 — which is ironically considered a good sign for inflation.
Later Friday morning, the president took to the podium at the Rehoboth Beach Convention Center near his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware to deliver his reaction to the news.
Biden opened by summarizing some of “today’s excellent jobs report,” and said “I want to speak about our economy, and what we are doing to lower the costs for American families.”
“I know that even with today is good news, a lot of Americans remain anxious. And I understand the feeling. I grew up in a family about a hundred miles from here, that if the price of gas went up, you felt it. It was a discussion at the kitchen table. And there’s no denying that high prices, particularly around gasoline and food, are a real problem for people. But there’s every reason for the American people to feel confident that we will meet these challenges,” Biden said.
The president then spent some time describing the positive aspects of the economy:
At the time I took office about 16 months ago, the economy had stalled and Covid was out of control. Today, thanks to the economic plan and the vaccination plan that my administration put into action, America has achieved the most robust recovery in modern history.
Just two years removed from the worst economic crisis since the great depression. The job market is the strongest it’s been since just after World War II. We’ve got more evidence of that today. We learned that in May the economy added 390,000 new jobs, bringing the total since I took office to 8.7 million new jobs. An all-time record.
We learned that more Americans entered the labor force in May. In fact, working-age people have come back into the workforce at a faster right in this recovery than at any point in the last 40 years. That means the unemployment rate is at historic lows. And the number of Americans on unemployment benefits has gone from record highs to record lows.
The president went on to discuss his plan for fighting inflation, and to urge Congress to act on it.
Watch above via The White House.
