What November’s jobs report means for Biden’s economic plan
Yahoo Finance’s Rick Newman joins the Live show to discuss November’s jobs report and what it means for President Biden’s economic plan.
Video Transcript
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RACHELLE AKUFFO: The US added 263,000 jobs in the month of November, well above those expectations of 200,000. But what does that mean for the state of President Biden's economic plan? Yahoo Finance's Rick Newman now joins us to discuss this. So Rick, too early for a victory lap at this point?
RICK NEWMAN: Not at all. Biden has been going around the country before the midterm elections and after the midterm elections, saying, wow, the economy is just doing great on my watch. He hasn't really had anything to say so far today about the jobs report that was out this morning, but he will. And the White House is generally correct when they say there's been just a terrific pace of job growth under Biden.
Now that is not necessarily because of anything Biden has done. Obviously, he came into office just as we were getting into this accelerated snapback from the COVID shutdowns. But nonetheless, the numbers are great under Biden. And I track employment numbers and some other economic data under Biden and compare it with prior presidents. And if you go all the way back to Jimmy Carter in the 1970s, job growth under Biden is the strongest of any of those eight presidents. So he does have something to brag about.
AKIKO FUJITA: So how does he turn that into momentum, Rick? I mean, yes, we've got the midterms behind us. And it turns out, well, the economy wasn't as big of a hit to Democrats as we had anticipated. Inflation's still high, though, even if those jobs numbers are good. How do you make that a positive message?
RICK NEWMAN: Well, so Biden is going to go-- keep doing what he's doing, going around and talking about job growth, the low unemployment rate. And Democrats may actually have a favorable window of opportunity here. So a lot of economists are saying they expect the economy to slow. And some are expecting a recession in 2023, although if we're going to have a recession, I mean, it sure is not evident in today's job numbers.
But let's say we do have a slowdown or a recession in 2023. It will probably be mild, and then we'll be into a recovery in 2024. And one would think that by 2024, inflation will be under control or close to it. So it's possible that by 2024, the next election year, Democrats are going to be able to say, look, we're back to a decent recovery and inflation is down. So I think that outlook is actually pretty good for Democrats and for President Biden.
AKIKO FUJITA: Yeah, that's certainly the hope, as the president sort of ponders over whether, in fact, he is going to run for re-election. Rick Newman, as always, thanks so much for breaking that all down for us.
RICK NEWMAN: Bye, guys.
