Biden says 'economy is moving in the right direction' despite April jobs numbers
Delivering remarks at the White House on Friday, President Biden expressed confidence in the economy despite an April jobs report that didn’t meet analysts’ expectations.
Video transcript
JOE BIDEN: We came to office, we knew we were facing a once-in-a-century pandemic and a once-in-a-generation economic crisis. And we knew this wouldn't be a sprint, it'd be a marathon.
Quite frankly, we're moving more rapidly than I thought we would. This morning, we learned that our economy created 266,000 jobs in April. It hadn't been adjusted again yet, but that's what it says, 266. And listening to commentators today, [CHUCKLES] as I was getting dressed, you might think that we should be disappointed.
But when we passed the American Rescue Plan, I want to remind everybody, it was designed to help us over the course of a year, not 60 days-- a year. We never thought that after the first 50 or 60 days everything would be fine. Today, there's more evidence that our economy is moving in the right direction. But it's clear we have a long way to go.
All told, our economy has added more than 1,500,000 new jobs since I took office. That's the most number of jobs created in the first three months of any presidency in our history.
Just for perspective, in these three months before I got here, the economy added about 60,000 jobs a month, not half a million. In the three months since I've been here, the economy has added 500,000 jobs per month. And this is progress. And it's a testament to our new strategy of growing this economy from the bottom up and the middle out. It's a clear testament to why it's so needed.
Some critics said that we didn't need the American-- the American Rescue Plan, that this economy would just heal itself. Today's report just underscores, in my view, how vital the actions we're taking are. Checks to people who are hurting. Support for small businesses, for child care, and school reopening. Support to help families put food on the table. Our efforts are starting to work. But the climb is steep, and we still have a long way to go.
