‘Jobs Up, Wages Up, Unemployment Down’: Biden Puts Positive Spin On Disappointing Jobs Report

In a speech on Friday, President Joe Biden put a positive spin on what was a disappointing jobs report released earlier in the day by summarizing it as showing “jobs up, wages up, unemployment down.”

The United States added just 194,000 jobs in September, far below economists’ projection of 500,000. The unemployment rate fell to 4.8 percent last month from 5.2 percent the previous month.

Nonetheless, Biden touted the report as a good thing:

Today’s report comes one day after the Labor Department found in the third quarter of this year the number of layoffs and job reductions was the lowest in this country since 1997. Overall, the unemployment report shows almost 200,000 jobs were created last month. Over 300,000 in the private sector and 26,000 in manufacturing, offset by some seasonal adjustments in education hiring. The monthly totals bounce around, but if you take a look at the trend, it’s solid.

On average, 600,000 new jobs created every month since I took office, and in three months before I got there that was one-tenth what was being created. It’s 60,000 as opposed to 600,000 jobs a month. In total, the job creation in the first eight months of my administration is nearly 5 million jobs. Jobs up, wages up unemployment down. That’s progress.

And it’s a tribute to the hard work and resilience of the American people who are battling through this pandemic. We’re going to keep their businesses afloat. Remember, today’s report is based on a survey that was taken during the week of September the 13th, not – not today, September the 13th. When Covid cases were averaging more than 150,000 per day. Since then we’ve seen the daily cases by more than one-third and they’re continuing to trend down. We’re continuing to make progress.

Watch above, via CNN.