News/Commentary

NY Post editorial board rips Biden’s victory lap: ‘There’s been no job creation, only an anemic recovery’

April 2, 2022 | | Print Article

President Joe Biden keeps tooting his own horn by portraying himself as such an allegedly successful job-creator, but not everybody is buying his hype. Over at the New York Post, the paper’s editorial board says he’s full of schiff — bullschiff, to be exact.

In a scorching op-ed published Friday, the board specifically accused the president of “tak[ing] credit where it isn’t due.” As an example, they pointed to what he’d said earlier that morning.

“Our policies are working. And we’re getting results for the American people — which is what it’s all about, to state the obvious. Record job creation. Record unemployment declines. Record wage gains,” he’d said from the White House.

“And, by the way, jobs and unemployment are not just another statistic. They go directly to the core of what the economy represents: the ability for hardworking Americans to live with dignity, support their families, and build a better life for their children,” Biden had said.

He’d also claimed that “because of the” inflation-spiking “American Rescue Plan, “four million more American jobs were created and unemployment is two percent lower than it would have been had we failed to move that legislation.”

But, according to the Post’s editorial board, he deserves zero credit for the current economic “gains,” in part because they’re not even really gains.

“[H]e and his administration have not created a single job. … In February of 2020, the nation had around 152.5 million total nonfarm employees (the highest number ever). Then came the pandemic, which chopped that number down to near 130.5 million,” the board argues.

“We’ve since been creeping back up to where we were before — and creeping more slowly as Biden’s policies took effect. And we’re still not there yet: The latest count is 150.9 million total nonfarm employees. So we’re still significantly short of that 152.5 million peak — which means there’s been no job creation, only an anemic recovery.”

An anemic recovery that critics like conservative commentator Ben Shapiro have long argued could have been avoided had the president pursued different policies:

The irony, the Post’s editorial board further notes, is that even going by the president’s job-creation standards, he still “produced” fewer jobs than former President Donald Trump.

“Even if we’re using the idiotic Biden standard for jobs ‘created’ (i.e., COVID-killed jobs returning as the pandemic fades), Trump ‘created’ almost 12 million between April 2020 and December 2020. Biden’s much-touted ‘creation’ of 7.9 million is much less, over much more time,” according to the board.

The pre-COVID numbers are even worse for the current president.

“Under President Donald Trump, the economy actually did add jobs pre-pandemic. Close to 9 million, in fact, from January 2016 to January 2020. And the median household saw historic wage gains (the 7% annual increase in 2019 was the biggest on record),” as noted by the Post.

Meanwhile, though wages are reportedly moving up, Americans under this president are “seeing their gains erode daily, with gas, groceries, rent and everything else going through the roof.”

When Trump left office in January of 2021, the retail price of regular gas averaged around $2.33 per gallon, according to numbers from the Energy Information Administration. As of late March under Biden, it was up to $4.22/gallon.

The Post’s editorial board concluded their column with a brutal reminder.

“Grim reality may not stop Biden from patting himself on the back for his fake achievements, but his collapsing poll numbers show Americans believe their own eyes, not his bull,” they wrote.

Indeed, the president’s latest job approval numbers were 39 percent from Marist, 38 percent from Quinnipiac, 45 percent from Economist/YouGov, 40 percent from Rasmussen, etc. The average, according to RealClearPolitics, was 40.8 percent approval and 54.0 percent disapproval as of Saturday morning.

On the economy, in particular, the president was averaging 37.1 percent approval, with some recent polls registering as low as 31 percent (Grinnell/Selzer) and 33 percent (NBC News).

Meanwhile, the president continues to double down on the policies that brought him to this point.

This past week his administration announced:

  • Plans to redesign all airport TSA screening devices to make them “gender inclusive.”
  • Plans to force doctors to provide children with sex-change operations.
  • Plans to scrap Title 42, which experts say will cause a migrant surge.
  • Plans to further attack the oil/gas further.
  • Plans to invest even more into “clean energy.”
  • Plans to release oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve that’s supposed to only be used in emergencies.
  • Etc.

He keeps doubling down, even as his poll numbers keep dropping …

Vivek Saxena
Latest posts by Vivek Saxena (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles