The Labor Department’s monthly jobs report for May showed another better-than-expected rise in new jobs, with the economy adding 339,000 of them. That’s far better than the Dow Jones forecast of 190,000 jobs, and the White House wasted no time putting out a statement from Joe Biden noting that since he took office, the economy has created more than 13 million jobs, which is “more jobs in 28 months than any President has created in an entire 4-year term,” although of course not many presidents (zero) have come into office during a pandemic that killed jobs dead. Even so, it’s been a far faster recovery than was being predicted in the depths of the pandemic, and Biden policies did a hell of a lot to move it forward.
Heck, let’s just let Joe toot his own horn a bit more, since there’s a lot of tootworthy economic news:
We also learned that the unemployment rate has been under 4 percent for 16 months in a row. The last time our nation had such a long stretch of low unemployment was in the 1960s. And the share of working age Americans in the workforce is at its highest level in 16 years. Meanwhile the annual inflation rate has fallen for 10 months in a row, and it’s down more than 40 percent since last summer. During that time, take-home pay for workers has gone up, even after accounting for inflation.
In short, the Biden economic plan is working. And due to the historic action taken by Congress this week, my economic plan will continue to deliver good jobs for the American people in communities throughout the country.
Toot! May was the 29th consecutive month in which jobs have grown, which includes the final month of the Trump administration, so he’ll probably insist Biden has simply been coasting on the recovery Trump started by whining about the 2020 election results.
The unemployment rate did tick up three-tenths of a percent, to 3.7 percent, although we’re continuing to have the lowest unemployment rates since 1969. Nice.
What with the debt limit bill passing and the economy not going off the cliff that Republicans were aiming for, Wall Street was a tad giddy over the news, with the Dow Jones industrial average getting a 600 point growthboner, although as ever, we caution that the stock market is not the economy anyhow.
In any case, we predict the positive economic news will force Fox News to increase its repetition of the video of Joe Biden tripping and falling by at least 30 percent in the coming days.
And as ever, the strong job growth also has some econoboffins predicting that the Federal Reserve may again raise interest rates to cool inflation, whether inflation is actually increasing or not, because Jesus Christ that’s just what those people do, although other econonerds, like the New York Times‘s Joe Rennison, suggested that growth in the S&P index came as “investors welcomed the jobs report as walking the line between showing enough cooling to keep the Fed from raising rates this month, but still underlining the resilience of the labor market.” Like Johnny Cash those investors are, forever walking the line on the ring of fire as they hear that train a-comin’.
In conclusion, it’s time for lunch and consumer confidence is high that the Taco Bell app will probably work OK today, did you see the “Enchirito” is back for a limited time? (Yes it’s crap. It’s the crap some of us crave.)
[Bureau of Labor Statistics / CNBC / White House]
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