Referencing the 531,000 new jobs created in October, President Biden recently said “(T)his recovery is faster, stronger, fairer and wider than almost anyone could have predicted. That’s what the numbers say.” But as is often the case with Biden’s statements about job creation, the reality differs significantly from the picture painted by the president. Not only did prominent economists predict higher levels of monthly job growth than we saw in October, even the White House predicted far more rapid job creation earlier this year under its big-spending agenda.
On February 1, 2021, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released a report projecting that monthly job growth this year (specifically, between the fourth quarter of 2020 and 2021) would average 521,000 – just below the 531,000 level Biden hailed as unpredictably high. But CBO also noted in February that their 521,000 jobs per month projection was based on “the assumptions that…no significant additional emergency funding or aid is provided.” In fact, significant additional emergency aid was subsequently provided through Democrats’ $1.9 trillion March 2021 American Rescue Plan. To account for that, on July 1, 2021, CBO upped its expected monthly job growth projections for this year to 587,000 – or significantly more than the 531,000 jobs created last month.
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