Job growth is so strong GOP leaders remain

Littleton CO

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By most measures, the latest jobs report was quite good: The U.S. economy added another 263,000 jobs in September, bringing the new total for the year to roughly 3.78 million. This is a very strong total more in line with what we’d expect to see in a full year, not nine months into the year. It also outpaces any individual year from Donald Trump’s term in the White House. The same report showed the unemployment rate falling to 3.5% — matching a 50-year low. In fact, the latest figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics were so good that the major Wall Street indexes suffered big losses on Friday: Strong job growth made it more likely that the Federal Reserve would raise interest rates again, pushing the national closer to a recession as part of a counter-inflationary effort. It was against this backdrop that the Republican National Committee issued a press release, trying to convince people that the job totals only looked encouraging. First, in Trump’s first three years, over the course of 36 months, the U.S. economy fell short of 263,000 jobs a total of 32 times. If the RNC expects the public to see the most recent jobs report as somehow subpar, then Trump — and every Republican who insists that Trump was God’s gift to the economy — has some explaining to do. Second, the data from September will be revised, and it’s entirely possible that the tally will end up looking even more impressive. But at least the RNC was willing to acknowledge the existence of the jobs report with an odd and unpersuasive press release — which is more than we can say about congressional Republican leaders. In keeping with the recent trend, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell responded to the job numbers by saying literally nothing about the good news. No press releases, no tweets and no public comments. They literally found themselves speechless. Circling back to our recent coverage, these same GOP leaders were similarly at a loss for words a month ago. And the month before that. And the month before that. And the month before that. And the month before that. In fact, McCarthy hasn’t issued a statement in response to any U.S job data since January, when he released this gem lamenting news he considered “disappointing.” But by that reasoning, shouldn’t Americans give Democrats credit for rapid and historic job growth? If Biden and his party are responsible for economic developments, how is it that this is no longer applicable when the economy creates more than 10.5 million jobs since the start of last year?