Grateful Ron Klain Gives NY Times Kudos For Saying Blockbuster Jobs Report Shows ‘Biden Is Right About A Recession’
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White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain praised a New York Times headline suggesting July’s blockbuster jobs report shows President Joe Biden “is right: that the U.S. is not in a recession.
Economists predicted that the economy would gain 250,00 jobs in the July survey, but at 8:30 on Friday morning, the actual report blew past that figure by more than twice that number — 528,000 jobs added, and an unemployment rate that ticked down to 3.5 percent, the lowest in 50 years.
President Biden released a statement that reads like a muted victory lap, relative to a jobs report that even Fox called “Pretty incredible”:
Today, the unemployment rate matches the lowest it’s been in more than 50 years: 3.5%. More people are working than at any point in American history. That’s millions of families with the dignity and peace of mind that a paycheck provides. And, it’s the result of my economic plan to build the economy from the bottom up and middle out. I ran for president to rebuild the middle class – there’s more work to do, but today’s jobs report shows we are making significant progress for working families.
Klain took the opportunity to play a little “Told You So” by retweeting a New York Times article authored by Jim Tankersley entitled “The jobs report suggests President Biden is right about a recession.”
“Kudos, @nytimes,” Klain wrote.
Kudos, @nytimes pic.twitter.com/UH1PYuuGpO
— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) August 5, 2022
President Biden — along with many economists, fact-checkers, news outlets, and Fox News personalities from several years ago — has consistently said that the two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth don’t necessarily mean the United States is in a recession, especially given other positive economic indicators.
As Tankersley notes, the White House had been preparing reporters for a much lower number, and has been doing so for several months.
“The expectations-busting job creation number appeared to surprise them, again,” he wrote.
“But Mr. Biden will almost certainly cite the numbers as evidence that the economy is nowhere near recession. He and his aides have repeatedly said in recent weeks that the current pace of job creation is out of step with the jobs numbers in previous recessions, and proof that a contraction in gross domestic product does not mean the country is mired in a downturn,” Tankersley added.
