Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) praised the White House for a positive jobs report released Friday, saying, “The president is really landing this.”
The U.S. added more than 270,000 jobs in May, blowing well past the expected 185,000, according to data from the Department of Labor. The findings, however, also showed that the unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 4 percent.
“The numbers don’t lie. Things are great, and the president is really landing this, especially post-pandemic,” Frost said in an interview Friday with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. “I think the folks who are not feeling this, which is very valid, are thinking about the high prices of things.”
Despite the good news, the Biden administration has had a difficult time communicating the economic wins to voters as prices — from groceries to housing — remain high.
Nearly 3 in 5 Americans in a recent Harris poll said the U.S. is still in a recession, despite a record number of new jobs added under Biden and the longest stretch of unemployment below 4 percent since the 1960s.
Experts say everything from the lingering impacts of 40-year high inflation to a shifting media landscape are to blame for the divide in how Americans view the economy and what statistics show.
The “All In with Chris Hayes” host noted Friday that Americans think the economy is not moving upward despite the data, saying, “housing cost is a huge issue for folks,” but that’s “being driven by local policy and the Fed,” not Biden.
Frost seemingly agreed, adding that the president “has been focusing on junk fees, thinking how we are going to help renters, how we are going to help people buy and accumulate wealth.”
The May jobs report comes as the Federal Reserve is expected to meet next week to vote on whether interest rates will need to increase. The rates have largely remained steady this year, and inflation is still above target.