By Stacy M. Brown, NNPA Newswire Senior National Correspondent
America’s employers added 311,000 jobs last month, surpassing the 208,000 experts predicted.
Further, the last two years saw more jobs created since 1940, a sign that the country has recovered soundly from the COVID-19 recession.
In January, employers added 504,000 jobs, and then 300,000+ last month, robust gains that pointed to high demand for labor.
However, despite the solid report, the African American job market remained problematic.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the overall unemployment rate rose to 3.6% in February from 3.4% the prior month.
Women over 20 saw an unemployment rate slightly rise to 3.2% from 3.1%.
Unemployment rates for Black women climbed to 5.1% from 4.7%.
Among Hispanic women, it jumped to 4.8% from 4.4%.
The Black unemployment rate peaked at 5.7%, up from 5.4% in January.
But, President Biden said he was excited about overall progress.
“I’m happy to report that our economy has created over 300,000 new jobs last month, and that’s on top of a half a million jobs we added the month before,” a celebratory President Joe Biden exclaimed.
“All told, we’ve created more than 12 million jobs since I took office, nearly 800,000 of them manufacturing jobs.
“That means, overall, we’ve created more jobs in two years than any administration has created in the first four years.”
Biden said he believes his administration’s economic plan is working.
The President asserted that when he took office, the economy was reeling.
“And 18 million people were unemployed, on unemployment insurance, compared to less than 2 million today,” he stated.
“Unemployment was 6.3 percent, and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted it wouldn’t get below 4 percent until 2026.
“Because of our economic plan, unemployment has been below 4 percent for 14 straight months since January 2022.”
In February, the unemployment rate remained near the lowest level in a half-century.
“That’s really good news. People who were staying out of the job market are now getting back into the job market,” the President noted.
“They’re coming off the sidelines. They’re getting back into the job market. And today’s job numbers are clear: Our economy is moving in the right direction.”
Biden declared that jobs are available, and Americans are working again and becoming more optimistic about the future.
He called right-wing Republicans the biggest threat to America’s economic recovery.
“The reckless talk, my MAGA friends. This is not your — as you’ve heard me say, it’s not your father’s Republican party,” Biden railed.
“But the Republicans in the United States Congress, what they want to do with regard to the debt limit. You know, they’re threatening to default on our national debt. Planning to default, as some Republicans seem to be doing, puts us much at risk.”
He continued:
“I believe we should be building on our progress, not go backward. So, I urge our extreme MAGA Republican friends in Congress to put the threats aside. Instead, join me in continuing the progress we’ve built. We’ve got a lot more to do, so let’s finish the job.”
