Fast-paced job growth is more evidence of 'Biden boom'

The economy added 807,000 private-sector jobs in December, more than double what economists had forecasted, providing more grist for claims that President Joe Biden’s American Rescue Plan is boosting economic recovery.

Economists polled by the Wall Street Journal predicted only modest gains of 375,000 jobs. But the ADP Employment Report, released Wednesday morning by the payroll company, signaled the economy’s second-highest private jobs tally since May. Last month, private-sector jobs grew by 534,000.

The White House cheered the news, pointing to the report as more evidence of a Biden economic boom.

“December was another month of strong private sector job growth,” White House chief of staff Ronald Klain wrote on Twitter. “The American Rescue Plan has bolstered our economy, even in the face of COVID.”

Robert J. Shapiro, a columnist for the Washington Monthly who worked as an economics adviser in both the Obama and the Clinton administrations, wrote in December that few have noted the “Biden boom,” even as Biden has overseen the largest real GDP growth rate in the century. During the first three-quarters of 2021, real GDP increased at almost 8% annually, compared to an average rate of 2.2% growth from 2000 to 2019.

A December report from the Roosevelt Institute found that Biden’s signature legislative accomplishment, a $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus bill passed in March called the American Rescue Plan, spurred massive job growth while protecting the economy from the pandemic’s worst effects.

“We’re entering 2022 in a position of a unique economic strength: Six million new jobs — a record number for a new President — have been created since January last,” Biden said Monday. “Unemployment is down to 4.2 percent, three years ahead of predictions. New small-business applications are up over 30 percent compared with before the pandemic. And the fastest growth in America in nearly 40 years.”

But Republicans continue to hammer Biden on the economy.

“Joe Biden just claimed the U.S. is ‘entering 2022 in a position of unique economic strength'” the chair of the Republican National Committee, Ronna McDaniel, wrote on Twitter Monday. “The facts: Inflation is highest in 39 years, job growth has stalled, and the supply chain is in crisis.”

Some economic experts beg to differ, however. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, who was nominated by former President Donald Trump, cheered the falling unemployment rate in December, saying, “Amid improving labor market conditions and very strong demand for workers, the economy has been making rapid progress toward maximum employment.”

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.