Is Biden getting credit he doesn’t deserve?
Democrats are praising President Joe Biden after a positive jobs report released Friday showed the economy had added 467,000 jobs last month.
The number, well above expectations, has quickly become a talking point among Republicans and Democrats.
According to a report by Fox Business, a Democratic aide noted that Republicans “are the ones hardest hit” as they were “rooting against the economy.”
The aide continued lauding Biden and Democrats for creating “a record 7 million jobs in 12 months and 1.7 million over the last three months,” adding that Dems would do the work needed to be done “while Republicans sit on the sidelines and quite literally cheer against America.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD.), also praised the report, saying, “The January jobs report is proof that Democrats’ economic policies are working and getting our economy back on track.”
He continued by saying that sustaining the momentum is vital to a transition from “the economic recovery phase to one of sustained, broadly felt growth” and that Congress could achieve this by not wasting time in “enacting further legislation.”
January’s 467,000 increase in payrolls outperformed forecasts and follows the December increase in payrolls being revised upward, from 199,000 to 510,00.
On Friday morning, President Biden expressed pride in January’s job report. The President said the report showed the “extraordinary resilience and grit of the American people, and American capitalism,” adding that the U.S. “is taking everything that COVID has to throw at us, and we’ve come back stronger.”
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison was also singing President Joe Biden’s praises, stating that the “jobs report makes it clear: President Biden’s economic plan is working. The economy is booming and continues to exceed expectations.”
He then lauded the work of the Democrats, asserting that it was “thanks to the work of Democrats who passed the American Rescue Plan, got more than 200 million Americans vaccinated, and tackled supply chain bottlenecks, the economy has created a record over 6.6 million jobs in 12 months, and 2021 was the greatest year of job creation under any president in history.”
Yet Republicans and conservatives have taken a different view on the jobs report.
Alfredo Ortiz, CEO and president of the conservative Jobs Creators Network, said the numbers were “encouraging” it pointed to Americans being “tired of government-induced lockdowns.” However, he noted that the “damage has already been done.”
He pointed to the U.S. being “down 22.4 million jobs at the height of the pandemic,” saying the only reason there had been an uptick in jobs was because of “Republican governors and their pro-freedom policies.”
Republican Senator Mike Lee of Utah wasn’t as enthused about the results either, stating that inflation was still eating away at Americans’ paychecks.
He blamed “runaway spending in Congress” for causing inflation that was “handing most Americans a pay cut, and falling real wages have discouraged many from returning to work.”
