A Blistering June Jobs Report - The American Economy Remains Remarkably Strong
With revisions, 432,000 net new jobs last month - remarkable stuff!
Friday, June 2nd - The June BLS jobs report is out and it’s another good one - 339,000 net new jobs, 432,000 with upward revisions from previous months. With this new data my monthly jobs tracker clocks in at:
33.8m jobs - 16 years of Clinton, Obama
13.1m jobs - 28 months of Biden
1.9m jobs - 16 years of Bush, Bush and Trump
Biden's 13.1m jobs is almost 7 times as many jobs as were created in the 16 years of the last 3 Republican Presidencies, combined. It is also millions more than were created in the entirety of any of their three individual Presidencies. Since 1989 and the end of the Cold War, the US has seen 49 million new jobs created. Remarkably 47 million of those 49 million jobs were created under Democratic Presidents, 96% - essentially all of them.
We’ve also put some of the data which follows into a Twitter thread for those of you who still share on Twitter. Here we go:
What this data tells us is that since this new age of globalization began in 1989, a modern and forward-looking Democratic Party has repeatedly seen strong economic growth on its watch. Republican Presidents, on the other hand, have overseen three consecutive recessions - the last two, severe. The contrast in performance here is very stark. It is not a stretch to state that the GOP’s economic track record over the past 30 years has been among the worst in the history of the United States. Thus is is not surprising that in recent weeks we saw the Republicans working so hard to once again wreck the American economy - it is what the modern Republican Party does, again and again. It is also why we should be so grateful that our experienced and savvy President was able to stave off this Republican wrecking ball and get a smart deal done on the debt ceiling this week.
The reason it was so important for the Republicans to try to derail our current economic progress is because the Biden economic track record has been very strong:
GDP growth over 3%, 3 times what it was under Trump
Almost 7 times as many Biden jobs as last 3 GOP Presidents combined
best COVID recovery in G7
lowest unemployment rate in peacetime economy since WWII
lowest poverty/uninsured rates ever
very elevated wage gains/new business starts
Almost 2 job openings per unemployed person
real earnings up in 2022
the deficit went up every year under Trump and has come down every year under Biden
domestic oil production on track to set records in 2023
historic investments in our future prosperity (infrastructure, CHIPs, climate, health care)
Look at the jobs created per month over these Presidencies - Rs at just 10k per month over 16 years. Biden is running at 50 times that so far. Yes, 50x! The jobs created just this past month - 339,000 - is 3 YEARS of job growth under these last 3 GOP Presidents.
Under Biden the US has had the best recovery from COVID of any advanced economy in the world:
Under Biden the economy is growing at 3 times the rate it did under Trump:
The bottom line is that Democratic policies have repeatedly been able to make globalization work for the American people in this new and challenging age. GOP policies have repeatedly failed to deliver, as a national party Republicans have repeatedly failed to do their part.
It is a core belief of mine that the current radicalization of the GOP is intimately linked to its repeated failure to handle the challenges of the post-Cold War era. The rigid ideological approach of the modern GOP has left it unable to govern in a time of rapid change; and those repeated failures have left many Republicans angry, reactionary and willing to do the unthinkable to stay in or regain power. The modern GOP has no answers for many of the most important challenges America faces today, and rather than modernizing, adapting, as all institutions must in a time of change, the GOP has decided to fight the future by rigging the system to remain in power while the country and its people drift from their narrow grasp.
This argument – about the success Democrats have achieved through modernization, and the failures of the GOP for their refusal to do so – is at the very core of my most important presentation, With Democrats Things Get Better. The next live showing of With Dems is this Friday, June 9th at 1pm EST. You can learn more and RSVP here. With Dems is new and updated each time so even if you saw it a few months ago it will be new and fresh.
Finally, I believe our collective overarching message priority this year is to get into positive territory against the Republicans on the economy. I talk about why this is so important in a new Short Take video. Given this strong track record going all the back to 1989 we shouldn’t be losing the economic debate to these guys. It is critical that we work together in 2023 to establish this basic contrast:
Dems = growth, lower deficits, progress for workers and families
Rs = recession, higher deficits, American decline
As I wrote last week, the conversation about the economy in the US remains very red wavy - it is full of false right wing narratives that are distorting our understanding of what’s happening here in our own country. The bottom line is that our economy is historically strong. Joe Biden has been a very good President. The country is much better off today.
And if you don’t believe me, read this Economist cover story, "The lessons from America’s astonishing economic record. The world’s biggest economy is leaving its peers ever further in the dust,” or watch this video (below) of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria talking about the historic strength of the US economy right now:
I am proud of our country, our President and our Party. We need to be very loud in the coming months about all the good we’ve done. Our ability to win next year may very well depend on how successful we are in fighting this economic red wave and helping Americans come to a better understanding of how successful we all have been, together.
Keep working hard everyone - Simon
I forwarded this Report to the New York Times with the following letter:
As a subscriber I expect to get a full and accurate picture of major news, such as the state of the economy.
I wonder if you and I are on the same planet when I see a report like the attached, by a well-respected political strategist with an impressive record of experience, at ABC News and in a number of Administrations:
In 1985 he moved to New York City to work for ABC News, where he spent two years before joining the Dukakis for President Campaign in Des Moines, Iowa. After Dukakis’ loss in 1988, he moved back to New York to work as a writer/producer for Linda Ellerbee’s Lucky Duck Productions. He left Lucky Duck in late 1991 to join the early Bill Clinton for President campaign in New Hampshire. He went on to play a major role in the general election campaign, serving in the famous War Room. In 1993 he moved from Little Rock, Arkansas to Washington, DC to work at the Democratic National Committee. He left the DNC in the fall of 1993 to join the Democratic Leadership Council, where he worked until starting the New Democrat Network in 1996. The New Democrat Network ceased operating in late 2004 and evolved into NDN and the New Policy Institute, the organization Rosenberg runs today.
In 1993, Rosenberg oversaw the placement of the first American political party on the Internet, putting the DNC on Compuserve. Rosenberg helped found the Congressional Caucus the New Democrat Coalition in 1996. A project he founded and led from 2003 through 2005 eventually became The Democracy Alliance. Rosenberg was a member of the Democratic Platform Committee in 2004, and a leading candidate for Chair of the Democratic National Committee in 2005. He was a high level outside advisor to the Obama White House and Administration more broadly, working on issues from TPP to Immigration Reform to economic policy.
Rosenberg is on the Board of the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University. In the fall of 2016 Rosenberg was a senior fellow at Tisch, teaching a class for undergraduates on American politics. Rosenberg is a member of the Department of State's Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy (ACICIP). Rosenberg is an Advisory Board Member of the non-partisan Open Source Election Technology (OSET) Foundation. Rosenberg was a member of the 2001 Class of Henry Crown Fellows at the Aspen Institute and remains active in the Fellowship today.
His well-researched stats indicate a far better picture of our economy than the doom & gloom articles consistently published by the Times. He backs it up with facts, actual numbers, hard statistics - not propaganda, and not, to my knowledge challenged or discredited by any legitimate journalists.
Do you see his reports? Don’t you feel an obligation to provide accurate reporting of this information?
I hope your slogan has not been shortened to merely “All The News That Fits”.
I don’t usually read the news before breakfast, but your headline grabbed me. I think you’re absolutely correct that the GOP’s rigid adherence to an ideology has frozen them in time. Biden is a good and intelligent president. We should be cheering him forward. What’s so bad about good news?