Biden touts jobs, but emphasizes vaccines

President Biden on Friday gave a sober message on a strong July jobs report, saying the nation needs to get more people vaccinated to keep the economy growing strongly.

“My message today is not one of celebration. It’s one to remind us we got a lot of hard work left to be done both to beat the delta variant and to continue our advance of economic recovery,” Biden said in remarks from the White House. “This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated, so we have to get more people vaccinated.”

The U.S. added 943,000 jobs and the unemployment rate fell a half-percent to 5.4 percent in July, according to the stellar jobs report released by the Labor Department. Job growth in June and May was also revised upward.

Yet Biden resisted taking a full victory lap at a time when coronavirus cases are skyrocketing across the country because of the highly-contagious delta variant, and because vaccination rates lagged behind the president’s own goals. 

The new jobs report was based on data from the beginning of July. While the report was filled with information that suggests the economy is growing strongly, it does not reflect the last two weeks, when delta took a firmer hold in the United States.

“America can beat the delta variant just as we beat the original COVID-19,” Biden said. “We can do this, so wear a mask when recommended, get vaccinated today. All of that will save lives and it means we’re not going to have the same kind of economic damage we’ve seen when COVID-19 began.”

Biden said the jobs figures are evidence his policies are working, and he touted the bipartisan infrastructure bill that is poised to pass the Senate in the coming days.

“While our economy is far from complete and while we — doubtless we will have ups and downs along the way as we continue to battle the delta surge of COVID, what is indisputable now is this: the Biden plan is working, the Biden plan produces results and the Biden plan is moving us forward,” Biden said of the new jobs numbers.

Biden thanked governors, including Maryland’s Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, for encouraging vaccinations and praised businesses taking steps to mandate vaccines. He mentioned his own decision to require federal workers to attest that they are vaccinated or submit to regular testing, before hinting that he could take further action.

“There will be more to come in the days ahead,” Biden said, without elaborating.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters later Friday that White House officials are discussing “a range of options” for the federal government to take action to further incentivize vaccines in the health care sector and other industries, but she said no decisions have been made.

“There are early conversations, early discussions about a range of options,” Psaki said. “Those are all early stage, they are pre-decisional, and I don’t have any policy decisions to preview for you.”

Biden made a point on Friday to compare the current situation to January, when he came into office. At that point, he said, nearly 4,000 Americans were dying each day, while currently 400 are dying daily. Biden described current deaths as a needless tragedy, but argued the U.S. is in a different position precisely because of his $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief bill and his administration’s vaccination program.

“Because of our success with the vaccination effort, this new delta variant wave of COVID-19 will be very different,” Biden said.

“Yes, cases are going to go up before they come back down. It’s a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” he said. “It’s taking a needless toll on our country.”

—Updated at 3:10 p.m.