The U.S. Labor Department announced that the economy added 253,000 jobs in April and the unemployment rate came in at 3.4%, down from 3.5% in March. It was the 27th consecutive month of positive job growth under the Biden administration. The Department also reported that wages were up 0.5% from March. The economy continues to create jobs at a monthly average rate much higher than recorded before COVID.
The unemployment rate has stayed in the 3% range for 15 consecutive months since February 2022. That is the lowest string of unemployment since the Lyndon Johnson administration when it stayed in the 3% range for 20 consecutive months in 1966-1967. And for those who are ignorant on such matters, in the last 94 years only one Republican President has left office with a lower unemployment rate than when he took office and that was Ronald Reagan. Every other Republican President, Hoover, Nixon-Ford, Bush 41, Bush 43 and Trump left office with a higher unemployment rate than when they took office. No democratic President during that same period of time left office with a higher unemployment rate than when he took office. And for the record, the nation lost 6.4 million jobs on Hoover's watch and 2.7 million jobs on Trump's watch.
The jobs and unemployment numbers for April, once again shocked the negative voices of doom and gloom who were looking for a major slowdown and still predicting a recession to take place same time this year that keeps getting pushed back from their original prediction of the third quarter of 2022. The negative voices still are incapable of saying anything positive about the economy.
The media in general is just as bad as the negative voices giving priority to negative news instead of the positives concerning the economy. They know democratic administrations have a long historical record of creating jobs and putting America to work but never report the facts even though the numbers back it up. They also know the GOP has no such record and are afraid to report it because their record is a disaster.
Even good economic conditions and results. when they exist, needs attention to keep progress moving forward for the country and its people. No economy is self sustaining. But we have a Federal Reserve, many corporate leaders and other negative voices who think you have to destroy jobs, raise unemployment and ruin the economy to make it better. That is pure nonsense with no original thought and those are the same people who could help move the economy forward with a different policy attitude and support of the President's policies that turned the economy around for the better.
It is past time to get behind and support the President's policies that have worked and to support those issues that will keep the economy creating jobs, lowering unemployment, raise wages, reduce inflation and put the country in position to balance future budgets. With political understanding we can keep the economy growing. A positive attitude, policy and working together will get us there. A negative attitude and division will not.
This commentary written by Joe Lorio
