If the economy added a record number of jobs, but people didn’t hear it or believe it, would it make a sound in American politics?
That is the question for President Joe Biden, whose Friday morning announcement of historic gains in new jobs, combined with a low 4% unemployment rate, was delivered through the gritted teeth of a leader who appears to be frustrated that he needs to explain to the public that the numbers are a good thing.
Since he took office, more than 6.6 million jobs have been created, 467,000 in January of 2022 – far more than the slight gain or possible loss of up to 300,000 jobs that was expected, Biden said in remarks at the White House.
“You can’t remember another year when so many people went to work in this country. There’s a reason. It never happened,” Biden said. “History has been made here,” he added, driving home his point. “It’s the strongest economic growth this country has seen in nearly 40 years.”
That was cause for celebration among Democrats and Biden supporters. It was treated as an asterisk by Republicans who contend that inflation and supply-chain issues are the real economic issues for average Americans.
And the job growth trends – normally cheerful news for Americans of any political persuasion – haven’t changed Biden’s low approval ratings on the economy.
A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 30% of Americans label the economy as excellent or good, with 68% calling it fair or poor. That survey also found that despite record economic growth and job gains in Biden’s first year, 36% approve of the president’s handling of the economy and 57% disapprove of it.
Other polls show similar results – and without any clear connection to the actual numbers. For example, a CNBC/Change poll released in January found that 47% of Americans think the stock market is not doing well compared to 24% who felt that way a year ago.
However, the stock market is much stronger now than it was a year ago: In the week CNBC/Change did its survey, in mid-December 2021, the Dow Jones Industrial Average hit 35,897. The previous year of the same week, the stock market average was 29,861.
Part of Biden’s problem is that inflation has been high. People “may be getting decent pay increases, but it’s not keeping up with inflation,” says economist Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economics. “Put together with rising gas prices, and it’s a ‘bad economy,’” he says.
Further, final jobs numbers don’t tend to get the media attention of preliminary estimates, which in the past few months have been disappointing before being revised upward as final counts came in.
For example, last summer, preliminary estimates vastly overstated job growth – and Biden’s approval numbers on the economy were higher. In November and December, meanwhile, final numbers added a combined 709,000 more jobs to the 448,000 that were initially reported. But the public mindset was rooted in the earlier numbers, analysts say.
Erica Groshen, former commissioner of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, attributes the under- and over-estimation of monthly jobs reports to the pandemic. The bureau makes “seasonal adjustments” to its calculations, but since people haven’t behaved in typical ways during the pandemic (such as taking summer vacations), the numbers get distorted, she says.
It’s largely balanced out for the year, however.
“Despite the craziness of 2020, the payroll numbers were almost right on the dot, in terms of total jobs created,” explains Groshen, who is now senior economics adviser at the Cornell University School of Industrial and Labor Relations.
Another factor is the ADP National Employment Report, which predicts non-farm job numbers and sets a benchmark for what economists and the media expect from the BLS. That report was released Wednesday and came in weaker than expected, adding fuel to the poor projections for the jobs report.
Friday morning, just minutes before the 467,000 number was announced, Fox News aired a segment predicting grim economic news, with the chyron “January jobs report predicted to be the worst in years.” The prediction was that the economy could lose as many as 300,000 jobs.
After the actual numbers were announced, the chyron changed. “How did everybody get this so wrong?” it asked.
Much of the reaction to the numbers falls along party lines. “Biden boom,” Sen. Cory Booker, New Jersey Democrat, tweeted with a story on the record-high jobs number. RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel, meanwhile, tweeted out an early story on a poll and said, “a staggering 75% of Americans view the economy as ‘not so good/poor’ – and Biden is to blame.”
Polling shows a strong correlation between political ideology and opinions of Biden’s handling of the economy. An Economist-YouGov poll in January found that 25% of Americans rated Biden as “good” or “fair” on the economy, with 70% calling his performance “fair” or “poor.”
Broken down by party affiliation, 46% of Democrats rated Biden as “excellent” or “good” on the economy while just 11% of Republicans shared that view. Among those who voted for Biden in 2020, 47% gave him positive marks on the economy. Just 7% of Trump voters agreed.
Irrespective of their own personal financial situation, “They may say things are really terrible because Republicans are not in power,” Naroff says. “It’s not even being a Republican. If you’re a Trump person, no matter what happens, it’s terrible.”