Biden Takes Credit for Jobs and Economic Growth From Rescue Plan — ‘And It Didn’t Cause The Inflation’

President Joe Biden took a victory lap over the millions of jobs created and strong GDP growth he says were spurred by the American Rescue Plan, adding “it didn’t cause the inflation.”

On Friday, President Biden spoke at the House Democratic Caucus Issues Conference Hilton Philadelphia at Penn’s Landing, covering a variety of topics that included avoiding World War Three over Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.

The president also spent some time ticking through positive economic indicators that have been obscured by relentless price increases, and credited his American Rescue Plan for the positive news — but not for the inflation:

You all remember the lines of cars — you remember? Nice-looking cars, stretched for hours and hours to (inaudible) just to get a box of food. Well, guess what? Stretching those miles and miles no longer is happening. That box of food is not only in the table — in the trunk. Because of that law, 41 million people put food on their table and are putting it on the table who wouldn’t have been able to. (Applause.)

Because of that law, we helped to keep a roof over 4 million people’s heads who were about to be evicted. (Applause.) And we gave families what my dad used to call “just a little breathing room.” Just a little bit of breathing room.

Because we took action, we created — we created 6.7 million jobs last year — more than any other time in American history.

And we haven’t stopped. Last month, we created over 7- — 678,000 jobs in February to get us well over 7 million jobs. (Applause.)

Unemployment is down [to] 3.8 percent. The economy grew 5.7 percent — the best economic growth in the last four decades. And the leading financial firm on Wall Street, Moody’s, estimates that because of the Rescue Plan, 4 million more jobs were created, unemployment is 2 percent lower than it would have been and — had we failed to act. And it didn’t cause the inflation.

Elsewhere in the speech, the president laid the blame for higher prices on the pandemic and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Watch above via CNBC.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!