Biden ‘inheritance’ larger than previously reported
Summary
The president gives another bleak assessment on the economy while his Labor Department reports an increase in job openings.The young Biden administration has already settled into an odd pattern of dissonance between the economic data the government reports and the president’s characterization of the economy. Encouraging updates from federal agencies are followed by gloomy proclamations from the Oval Office intended to justify massive federal action. Tuesday brought another bleak political message on the heels of a positive market reading.
In the morning the Labor Department reported that U.S. job openings ticked up in December to 6.6 million. This not only represented a slight increase from November’s historically high reading of 6.5 million but also exceeded the prior-year level during the pre-Covid salad days.
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Recently this column noted that, in the language of the Obama-Biden administration, our new President Joe Biden has received a sizable “inheritance" from his predecessor in terms of a rebounding economy. Measured in terms of the number of open positions for U.S. workers, the last full month of the Trump presidency is the greatest “inheritance" any U.S. president has ever passed on to his successor.
December’s 6.6 million job openings exceed by more than a million the number in President Barack Obama’s last full month in office. And President Biden’s “inheritance" from Donald Trump is more than twice the size of the one President George W. Bushbequeathed to Mr. Obama.
But you would never know it listening to Mr. Biden at the White House today. Prior to a meeting with corporate chieftains, the president didn’t mention the good news his government had reported just hours earlier. Instead, he offered essentially the same talking points he’s been using since last spring’s shutdowns.
The president once again repeated his mantra that “the American people are hurting. There’s a lot of people who are in real, real trouble. A lot of people going to bed at night, staring at the ceiling wondering whether they’re going to be in that apartment the next day, or if they’re going to be evicted, or if they’re going to keep their mortgage payment up, if they’re going to have any health insurance. We got millions of people unemployed."
That last sentence is certainly true, but he should also acknowledge that more than 12 million people have gone back to work since he started talking this way.
What’s also concerning about his message is that he decries the problems resulting from lockdowns without acknowledging they are being imposed by governors who enjoy his active support. “As [Treasury] Secretary [Janet] Yellen has pointed out, we have a scarring effect that may be going on and can get worse. We have kids not in school," the president continued on Tuesday.
The president then reiterated his intention to enact a “big" plan to “get the economy back on its feet."
But every day brings signs of a reviving economy that is ready to roar if only his allies in politics and teachers unions will let it.
The good news is not just carried in government statistics. The Journal’s Hannah Lang reports:
The number of help-wanted ads returned to pre-pandemic levels in January, particularly among industries that have weathered the pandemic relatively well, a sign that hiring could pick up from its sluggish pace at the start of the year.
Available jobs on job-search site Indeed were up 0.7% at the end of January from Feb. 1, 2020, according to the company’s measure of job posting trends.
There are numerous positive trends across the economy. Why can’t the president see them?
(This story has been published from a wire agency feed without modifications to the text.)
