Biden on jobs: The growing labor force 'pleases me most'
Shortly after new data Friday showed the economy added more jobs than expected, President Biden and his team were quick to tout the headline number — while also zeroing in on one other metric: the labor force participation rate.
Along with the new 311,000 jobs last month, the labor force participation rate moved to 62.5% in February, up from 62.4% in January, a sign of growing confidence in the job market.
And most notably for the Biden team, the participation increases were mostly felt among marginalized groups with the Black participation rate moving to 63.4% from 62.9% and the Latino participation rate moving to 66.8%, up from 66.3% in January.
"People are moving back into the workforce,” President Biden said on Friday. “This may be the part that pleases me the most about the report."
The growth in participation also led to an increase in the unemployment rate, which ticked higher to 3.6% from 3.4% in January.
Bigger unemployment rate jumps were seen among African Americans and Latinos as well with the unemployment rate jumping for Hispanic workers to 5.3% from 4.5% in January. The Black unemployment rate also moved up more than the nation as a whole, growing to 5.7% from 5.4% in January.
During an interview with Yahoo Finance Live, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh noted the Latino unemployment rate in particular, saying it’s still historically low and “we saw the participation rate in the Latino community go up as well, so that could tell some of the story there.”
But the big picture, Walsh said, is how “the numbers of prime age workers that were out of work during the beginning of the pandemic have all returned and recovered.”
Brian Deese, Biden’s former top economic advisor, also noted how the employment-to-population ratio among Americans ages 25-54 — which is linked to labor force participation — has now equaled pre-pandemic levels, calling it an “important milestone.”
In his remarks Friday, Biden added “It's not just good numbers, people can feel it,” which is what he says is getting people off the sidelines and back into the labor market.
Biden also criticized GOP members of the House Freedom Caucus during his remarks Friday. The conservative group unveiled new demands around the coming debt ceiling fight that could lead to deep government spending cuts if enacted.
"We just have a very different value set," Biden said.
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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