Economists are once again cheering the just-released jobs report, calling the results “objectively amazing,” saying the Federal Reserve has nothing to worry about on the jobs front, and slamming “doom and gloom” naysayers who have been talking about recession for well over a year.
The unemployment rate ticked up just a bit to 3.7%, slightly above an expected 3.5%, but, as NBC News reports, “still near the lowest since 1969.”
Average hourly earnings increased to rate a of 4.3% on the year.
“Holy moly, jobs growth comes in hot again,” cheered University of Michigan professor of economics Justin Wolfers, who is also a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. “Don’t believe the doom-and-gloom talk. This economy is motoring along.”
“It’s hard to emphasize just how much the current rate of job growth is best described as ‘EXTRAORDINARILY ROBUST’,” Wolfers exclaimed. “Job growth at this rate, this far into a recovery, with unemployment this low, is pretty close to unprecedented.”
Political strategist Simon Rosenberg served up a chart comparing the job growth efforts of presidents from George H. W. Bush to Joe Biden. He says, the data are “very clear about this.” The “GOP has been an economic wrecking ball.”
Rosenberg also says 96% of jobs created since 1989 have been under Democratic presidents.
Meanwhile, Professor Wolfers slammed those who keep talking about a recession, which the U.S. is not in.
“My advice: Take the names of those who told you that we’re in a recession. In the future, weight their views accordingly.”
Pointing to a Washington Post tweet with a headline that reads, “Labor Market is showing no signs of a recession for now,” Democratic strategist Greg Pinelo wrote: “Economists keep being surprised by strong jobs reports. Maybe you’re doing it wrong. The Republican dream of a recession is being dashed on the rocks of Biden’s successes.”
Indeed, that Washington Post report claims, “Many economists are predicting a recession later this year, especially if the Federal Reserve keeps hiking interest rates to curb inflation.”
Some say talk of recession, which Americans have been hearing since 2019, could be a self-fulling prophesy.
Nearly one year ago Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said: “I wish some of my colleagues would be more about promoting growth policies rather than simply criticizing the administration…I don’t hear them criticizing [Trump’s] economic policies…If you have people banging the drum ‘recession, recession, recession,’ it becomes in many ways a self-fulfilling prophecy, and maybe that’s good for short-term politics for some in this country, but it’s not good for the economic well being of Virginians and Americans.”
One year ago in June, economist David Rothschild wrote, “Get that Republican & Mainstream Media elites think this is all a game: get people to think economy sucks and we can elect more Republicans to give tax & regulation cuts to rich, slash necessary social safety net for working families! Cool! But, recession can be self-fulfilling.”
Journalist Ahmed Baba back in January documented what he sees as the self-fulfilling prophesy of a recession cycle:
Rothschild Friday morning praised the economy: “If economists were told in 2019 that world would be hit by devastating pandemic then Russia would invade Ukraine, their wildest optimistic forecasts would not have come close to how well economy (jobs, wages, market, despite inflation) has done over last 2.5 years.”
And calling the economy “objectively amazing,” Rothschild, like Rosenberg, also offered up a chart comparing the job growth efforts of presidents from George H. W. Bush to Joe Biden.
Biden is winning: