Biden's job creation numbers are nuts

As the media recently noticed, President Joe Biden has a long history of overpromising and under-delivering. For many politicians, such overpromises are forgiven – or just forgotten. But presidents’ words are closely parsed, which makes Biden’s statements about job creation at last week’s press conference so bewildering. 

That’s because actual job creation has fallen millions of jobs short of the predictions he and other leading Democrats made last year assuming the passage of their $1.9 trillion stimulus plan. And in vintage Biden fashion, the president even suggested that job creation has been so unexpectedly high that reviewers would have said "you’re nuts" had he predicted it beforehand.

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After a reporter asked a hard question about his "Bull Connor" speech, the president challenged him to "go back and read what I said." So, let’s follow the president’s advice and review his exact words on jobs at last week’s press conference. According to the White House’s transcript, the president said in his prepared remarks: "We created 6 million new jobs — more jobs in one year than at any time before."

Later, in response to a question, he added:

What is the trajectory of the country? Is it moving in the right direction now? I don’t know how we can say it’s not. I understand the overwhelming frustration, fear, and concern with regard to inflation and COVID. I get it. But the idea — if I told you, when we started, I told you what I’m going to do — "The first year, I’m going to create over 600 — or 6 million jobs.  I’m going to get unemployment down to 3.9 percent. I’m going to generate…" — and I named it all, you’d look at me like, "You’re nuts."

The president’s prepared remarks are correct about the record level of job creation last year. Payroll employment rose by 6.2 million between January when he took office and December 2021. In absolute terms, that exceeds any prior annual gains.

But the president failed to mention two critical qualifying facts.

Last year’s job creation, while significant, fell between four and seven million jobs short of what the president and other Democrats promised their trillion-dollar policies would yield.

The first is that he inherited expectations of record job creation in 2021, following the even greater job destruction of 2020 caused by the coronavirus shutdowns. For example, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected in February 2021 that monthly job growth would average 521,000, or a gain of over 6.2 million jobs between the fourth quarters of 2020 and 2021 – without further legislation.

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That brings us to the second critical fact - the president and other leading Democrats projected millions more jobs would be created under the trillion-dollar stimulus legislation they enacted last March. Specifically, White House economists stated that the legislation would make "a difference of 4 million jobs in 2021" on top of the "dire baseline" of over six million new jobs CBO projected without additional legislation. 

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., later repeated that claim, stating that "if we do not enact this package, the results could be catastrophic," including "4 million fewer jobs." And the day after he signed the massive stimulus bill into law, President Biden dialed up the job creation claims again, suggesting that "by the end of this year, this law alone will create 7 million new jobs. Seven million."

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All of which confirms that last year’s job creation, while significant, fell between four and seven million jobs short of what the president and other Democrats promised their trillion-dollar policies would yield. In reality, those expensive policies didn’t create even a single one of the millions of additional jobs they promised. 

Yet that hasn’t stopped the president from now bragging about his record – and suggesting he actually over delivered on jobs. Which really is nuts. 

Matt Weidinger is a senior fellow and Rowe Scholar in poverty studies at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where his work is focused on safety-net policies, including cash welfare, child welfare, disability benefits, and unemployment insurance. Before joining AEI, Mr. Weidinger served as the deputy staff director of the House Committee on Ways and Means and as the longtime staff director of its Subcommittee on Human Resources, with jurisdiction over safety-net programs.