Economists and economic experts once again are cheering the latest jobs report that beat expectations and shows not only did unemployment drop to 3.5%, it hit a new 50-year low as 223,000 jobs were added.
“For the year, the economy added 4.5 million jobs, the second-most on record,” The New York Times reports, neglecting to note the the record was set just one year earlier in 2021, also under President Joe Biden. “The unemployment rate ticked down to 3.5 percent, back to its low point from before the pandemic.”
“Wall Street is very happy with this number,” CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin said on MSNBC. He added that the Fed’s strategy of raising interest rates to combat inflation and avoid recession looks like it may be working better than expected.
“A trifecta of good news,” MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle noted, calling the job numbers “robust.”
“It’s hard to say this is not a good jobs report, it just is,” Ruhle announced.
“Anyone who thinks this is economy is in a recession is bananas,” declared popular University of Michigan School of Economics Professor Justin Wolfers. He notes the jobs report “comes in HOT again, adding 223k jobs, which is both robust in its own right, and stronger than expected.”
Wolfers also used the “trifecta” analogy.
“Lemme draw a line under today’s jobs report: Rapid job growth, record low unemployment, and wage growth running at levels likely to cool inflation is an astonishing trifecta of good news,” he explained.
“I’ve just calculated the unemployment rate to extra decimal places, and December’s rate of 3.468% is a new 50 YEAR LOW, the lowest rate since 1969,” he added excitedly.
Political strategist Simon Rosenberg, founder of a liberal think tank, explains the bigger picture.
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President Biden “is averaging almost 50 times the jobs created per month as last 3 GOP Presidents averaged.”
He shows how jobs surge under Democratic presidents, and says since 1989, 96% of jobs have been created under Democratic presidents.
Wolfers also threw in some political sarcasm, tweeting: “Note that the mass unemployment of elected-but-not-yet-seated-and-so-not-on-payroll Congressional Representatives occurred after these December employment numbers, and they should affect the January report.”
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