The great American jobs machine keeps revving in an election year
The White House is excited, but President Joe Biden still has his work cut out for him in selling the strong economy to voters.
People who bet on a slowdown in the U.S. job market lost again last month.
The economy added 353,000 jobs in January, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday. That’s nearly double what economists expected and well above the already-respectable monthly average of 255,000 for 2023. Wages also grew a stronger-than-expected 4.5%, and the jobless rate stayed in a tight range at 50-year lows.
“The labor market is the little engine that could,” said John Leer, chief economist at the business intelligence firm Morning Consult.
The White House leaned into the numbers, as President Joe Biden seeks re-election this year. Officials view the data as vindication of Biden’s policies, such as passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and investments in semiconductors and science. Jared Bernstein, chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA), called the report an “unequivocal story” that is good for the overall economy and working families.
“With easing inflation, we’ve now got wages handily beating prices, meaning more buying power,” Bernstein told reporters after the report was released Friday. “This is at the heart of a very virtuous ongoing cycle where the tight job market, strong job gains and wage growth outpacing price growth is consistently boosting consumer spending.”
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