According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the U.S. economy added 303,000 jobs in the month of March and the unemployment rate was little changed at 3.8 percent. Estimates for the monthly jobs report released Friday morning had called for 200,000 jobs to be added.
President Biden is sure to take a victory lap on the headline number in March's print of the employment situation, but he — as usual — will gloss over some key data points that tell a different story about the U.S. economy under "Bidenomics."
Where Jobs Were Added
Continuing a trend in recent months, the major sectors with job gains included government — not a sign of real economic growth — and quasi-government jobs in health care. According to BLS, health care accounted for 72,000 jobs while 71,000 jobs were added in government.
President Joe Biden insists that his "Bidenomics" agenda is working to "build the economy from the bottom up and the middle out," but the numbers don't match his words.
Most of the net job growth over the last year has come from gov't, either directly or indirectly; the gov't-dominated health care sector is #1 and outright gov't hiring is #2: pic.twitter.com/OGdeIwR0CE
— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) April 5, 2024
What Kind of Jobs Were Added and Who Got Them
Among them: how many of these added jobs are only part-time positions. As E.J. Antoni of the Heritage Foundation noted, full-time employment in March 2024 is lower than it was in February 2023.
New month, same story: we're losing full-time jobs and only adding part-time work: pic.twitter.com/09MLTkdxlU
— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) April 5, 2024
Another notable disparity in the jobs data is the way American vs. foreign-born individuals have weathered the Biden economy. Over the last 12 months, more than 650,000 native-born Americans have lost jobs as their foreign-born counterparts — more than one million of them — got jobs.
Americans have been completely left behind in this economy: foreign-born employment is not only several million above its pre-pandemic level but is even above its pre-pandemic trend, while native-born Americans have made no progress in 4 years - in fact, they've gone backwards: pic.twitter.com/AsADABdxQb
— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) April 5, 2024
Lagging Participation and Downward Revisions
The labor force participation rate was "little changed" in March at 62.7 percent according to BLS, meaning three years into Biden's "Build Back Better" agenda there are fewer participants now than there were before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Good to see LFP pick up but we're still significantly below pre-pandemic rate: pic.twitter.com/5tKKYAwKIz
— E.J. Antoni, Ph.D. (@RealEJAntoni) April 5, 2024
After a majority of monthly jobs reports in 2023 were subsequently revised down — meaning Biden's bragging about massive job gains was premature and inaccurate — the same trend has continued so far in 2024. March's jobs report revised February's number down by 5,000, a development that follows February's report in which the number of jobs added in January was revised down by 124,000 and the December 2023 report was adjusted lower by 43,000 jobs.
"Looking under the hood of today's jobs report shows it isn't the home run that Democrats and the media claim," reacted Alfredo Ortiz, the president and CEO of Job Creators Network. "Approximately, half of all jobs created last month came in unproductive government or quasi-government healthcare sectors," he emphasized. "Full-time jobs continue to decline, while part-time jobs are on the rise. The Main Street labor market is far weaker than the topline numbers or the conditions on Wall Street or K Street suggest," said Ortiz.
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