Pointing to a June jobs report that showed a better-than-expected 372,000 jobs added (MarketWatch, for example, predicted 250,000), Biden said the following at the White House:
Our private sector has now recovered all the jobs lost during the pandemic and added jobs on top of that. We have more Americans working today in the private sector than any day under my predecessor, more today than any time in American history — today.
In the second quarter of this year, we created more jobs than any quarter under any of my predecessors in nearly 40 years before the pandemic.
Think about that. At a time when our critics said the economy was too weak or having already added more jobs in my — we had already added more jobs my first year as president of any president in history, we still added more jobs in the past three months than any administration in nearly 40 years.
Now, look, I know times are tough. Prices are too high. Families are facing a cost-of-living crunch.
But today's economic news confirms the fact that my economic plan is moving this country in a better direction.
The unemployment rate is near a historic low of 3.6%. Private sector jobs are at a record high.
But as AFN recently reported, the American public knows full well that the economy is actually suffering under Biden's watch. In fact, economist Stephen Moore says the country is experiencing a recession after a half-year of negative growth.
Michael Austin, an economist for the Project 21 Black Leadership Network, thinks the job gains are "a figurative deep breath before the economic plunge."
"There are just too many signs that the fundamentals in our economy just are not strong," he says. "Yes, the unemployment rate is low or has dropped, but the labor force participation rate -- that is the amount of African-Americans who are either looking [for] or already have a job -- has fallen. And we're seeing that not just in the African-American community, but in the nation as a whole."
The unemployment rate for blacks in June was 5.8%, which is higher than it was for Asians (3%), whites (3.3%), and Hispanics (4.3%)
