Private employers added 216,000 new jobs last month and the unemployment rate stayed steady at 3.7 percent, according to the Labor Department.
The jobs report blew past expectations and provided another datapoint defying economists’ predictions of a recession through 2023. Still, it doesn’t guarantee voters will buy his economic message.
Just 32 percent of Americans approved of the way Biden is handling the economy, according to a November Gallup poll, and 39 percent of Americans approve of Biden’s presidency overall, a slight uptick from 37 percent in November.
In a hypothetical matchup between Biden and former President Trump, the clear GOP front-runner, Biden trails by 1 percentage point in The Hill/Decision Desk HQ poll tracker.
With the economy top-of-mind for many voters, the first jobs report of the year sets the stage for what promises to be a contentious election.
Democrats applauded the December report as they try to sell voters on the economy.
“Another strong report to round out a year of sustainable job growth, and growing the economy from the bottom-up and middle-out is the new pro-worker, pro-growth strategy,” Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, said Friday.
“By every measure, it’s working.”
Republicans, on the other hand, hammered cost increases as a result of four-decade-high inflation and interest rate hikes by the central bank.
“The average monthly mortgage payment has increased by $1,089 and is 96 percent higher than when President Biden took office in January 2021,” Ways and Means Republicans said in a statement.
“Consumer credit debt has reached an all-time high of just over $1 trillion and the number of Americans struggling to pay credit card bills has increased sharply.”
“As the calendar turns to 2024, working families see an administration pushing the same failed policies of ‘Bidenomics’ that have caused such financial and economic struggle, frustration, and anxiety,” Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.) said.
The Hill’s Tobias Burns has more here.
