The Federal Reserve just can't keep the Biden economy down. Another strong jobs report Friday showed employers added another 253,000 jobs in April, and unemployment ticked down to 3.4%—the lowest rate in over half a century.
It marked the 28th straight month of U.S. jobs gains and yet, as Forbes contributor Eli Amdur noted, many outlets framed it as a "surprising" report "beating expectations."
"Why, for God’s sake?" wondered Amdur. "After 28 straight months of this performance, why are analysts and reporters either surprised or maintaining misplaced low expectations?"
To be fair, the Federal Reserve Bank has been consistently raising interest rates for the past year with the express intention of tamping down economic growth to ease inflation. It did so again Wednesday, reaching a 16-year high of more than 5%.
But regardless of the Fed's efforts, the U.S. economy continues to be stronger and more resilient post-pandemic than any other economy in the world.
Here are five facts every Democrat should know about President Joe Biden's record growth over the past two years:
1. Under Biden's stewardship, the U.S. economy has generated 12.7 million jobs over 27 months, according to the “mighty” jobs thread of Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg.
2. The Biden economy is creating opportunities for all, not just the few: The Black unemployment rate was 4.7% in April 2023, the lowest ever recorded and an incredible comeback from 16.8% in May 2020, according to The Washington Post's Heather Long.
3. Since 1989, the U.S. economy has netted 49 million jobs. Ninety-six percent of those jobs have been created while Democrats controlled the White House.
4. In the first quarter of 2022, the national uninsured rate reached an all-time low of 8%, with about 5.2 million people – including 4.1 million adults ages 18-64 and 1 million children ages 0-17 – gaining health coverage since 2020.
5. New business applications have soared during the first two years of Biden's administration, with 5.4 million new business applications filed in 2021, the highest of any year on record, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Dimitri of WarTranslated has been doing the essential work of translating hours of Russian and Ukrainian video and audio during the invasion of Ukraine. He joins Markos and Kerry from London to talk about how he began this work by sifting through various sources. He is one of the only people translating information for English-speaking audiences. Dimitri’s followed the war since the beginning and has watched the evolution of the language and dispatches as the war has progressed.