President Joe Biden boasted of “historic progress” handling the economy Friday, even though the number of jobs created in May disappointed expectations of many economic analysts.
“This is progress, historic progress,” Biden said. “Progress that is pulling our economy out of the worst crisis it’s been in 100 years.”
Biden spoke after the monthly job numbers report showed that only 559,000 jobs were created in May despite estimates of at least 650,000. The unemployment number also dropped to 5.8 percent.
But the White House was determined to describe the jobs numbers as an absolute win.
Biden boasted that the number of jobs created in the first four months of his presidency was triple the record of former President Donald Trump and eight times that of former President Ronald Reagan.
No other president, however, took office during an artificial shutdown of the economy due to the pandemic.
The report showed that the economy made dramatic gains in leisure and hospitality, two industries that were artificially shut down by government regulations due to the pandemic.
But Biden claimed credit for the job gains, citing his coronavirus rescue plan for helping Americans survive the pandemic.
“No other major economy is growing jobs as quickly as ours,” he said. “And none of the success is an accident. It isn’t luck.”
Biden cautioned, however, of future struggles as the country tried to get back to normal after the pandemic.
“We’re going to hit some bumps along the way. Of course, that will happen,” he said. “We can’t reboot the world’s largest economy like flipping on an ice—light switch.”
Biden also mistakenly said that deaths from the coronavirus pandemic were up.
“To sum it up, look, Covid-19 cases are down. Covid-19 deaths are up,” he said.
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