By Matthew Holloway |
The U.S. Department of Labor revealed, as part of its preliminary annual benchmark revisions to national nonfarm payroll figures, that the department’s initial job creation numbers were overestimated by as much as 30%. Approximately 818,000 fewer jobs than the figure of 2.9 million touted by the Biden administration were actually created.
As reported by Forbes, the metrics taken from March 2023 to March 2024 estimated by the Deptartment of Labor at 2.9 million for the year, or 242,000 per month on average, were reduced to 174,000 per month or approximately 2.08 million.
Joint Economic Committee Vice Chairman Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) said in a statement, “This significant downward revision from BLS confirms what we’ve known since January 2021: that the U.S. economy is much weaker than President Biden and Vice President Harris have been selling.”
“This administration’s excessive spending, outrageous tax hikes, and burdensome regulations added over the last 3.5 years have made life much more difficult for American families than before the pandemic. Yet Biden and Harris have continued to peddle the narrative that the economy is robust because of ‘record-breaking’ job growth. Now, we know that the job gain estimates last year were notably overstated by more than 800,000 in yet another example of how badly the Biden-Harris administration has failed the American people.”
According to the announcement, the preliminary estimate of the upcoming annual benchmark revision is part of usual practice within the department and revisions are common. Another such revision took the Biden administration by surprise in 2022 when the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia corrected the estimate for the Second Quarter that year from an estimated one million down to just 10,500 jobs per The Post Millennial.
Despite past experience with the fickle nature of federal jobs estimates however, in an election year, President Joe Biden has repeatedly boasted his administration’s job creation.
Just a day before the announcement, he posted to X, “Since Vice President Harris and I took office, our economy has created nearly 16 million jobs,” adding, “Average unemployment under our administration has been lower than during any administration in 50 years.” On April 5th, he wrote that the erroneous job report marked “another chapter in America’s comeback. With the report of 303,000 new jobs in March, we’ve passed the milestone of 15 million jobs created since I took office. That’s 15 million more people who have the dignity and respect that comes with a paycheck.”
Reporting from CNBC confirmed that the downward revision of -0.5 percent is the largest in fifteen years, the last occurring on the tail end of the 08’-09’ recession. Chief economist at LPL Financial Jeffrey Roach told the outlet, “The labor market appears weaker than originally reported. A deteriorating labor market will allow the Fed to highlight both sides of the dual mandate and investors should expect the Fed to prepare markets for a cut at the September meeting.”
The most heavily impacted sectors of the economy were professional and business services that saw a heavy revision down of 358,000 jobs followed by the badly struggling leisure and hospitality industry, which was revised down by 150,000 and has suffered severely under inflationary burdens and short-staffing. Manufacturing jobs took a heavy hit with a downward revision of 115,000 jobs along with trade, transportation, and utilities taking a hit to the tune of 104,000 jobs.
On April 4th, Biden specifically boasted about creating “Nearly 800,000 new manufacturing jobs.” The Bureau of Labor Statistics revision revealed this was overblown by at least an eighth.
Despite the massive, heavily, and repeatedly boasted overestimation, White House economist Jared Bernstein strained to maintain the Biden administration narrative in a statement writing, “This preliminary estimate doesn’t change the fact that the jobs recovery has been and remains historically strong, delivering solid job and wage gains, strong consumer spending, and record small business creation.”
Economists at Goldman Sachs told the outlet later that they theorize the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “may have overstated the revisions by as much as half a million,” CNBC wrote. The report added, “The firm said undocumented immigrants who now are not in the unemployment system but were listed initially as employed amounted for some of the discrepancy.”
Goldman Sachs economist Ronald Walker said that the revision is likely “erroneous” and “misleading,” according to Forbes.
Following the report Wednesday, President Donald Trump took to TruthSocial expressing outrage and suggesting the Biden-Harris administration inflated the job statistics for political benefit.
He wrote:
“MASSIVE SCANDAL! The Harris-Biden Administration has been caught fraudulently manipulating Job Statistics to hide the true extent of the Economic Ruin they have inflicted upon America. New Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the Administration PADDED THE NUMBERS with an extra 818,000 Jobs that DO NOT EXIST, AND NEVER DID. The real Numbers are much worse than that and, if Comrade Kamala gets another four years, millions more Jobs will VANISH overnight, and Inflation will completely destroy our Country. YOUR LIFE SAVINGS WILL BE WIPED OUT. With a TRUMP VICTORY, we will once again have the Greatest Economy in History. MAGA2024!”
The final benchmark revision is set to be published by the Department of Labor in February 2025.
Matthew Holloway is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow him on X for his latest stories, or email tips to Matthew@azfreenews.com.
