Payrolls rose by 209,000 in June, less than expected, as jobs growth wobbles:
- Nonfarm payrolls increased 209,000 in June, below the consensus estimate for 240,000.
- The unemployment rate was 3.6%, down 0.1 percentage point. However, a more encompassing jobless level rose to 6.9%.
- Government hiring led the job gains, followed by health care, social assistance and construction.
- Wages rose 4.4% from a year ago, slightly higher than expectations.
The ADP report came out a few days before, which is a more limited snapshot of the economy–and all over Twitter you could see a lot of Democrats making hay as to how great the economy was doing.
Don’t get me wrong; I am a strong believer that Presidents don’t have a lot of influence over the economy. So if the economy is doing well or poorly is not really a reflection on the job President Biden is doing. At best Presidents can provide headwinds or tailwinds–but they don’t actually hire or fire people, or cause jobs to be created, new inventions to be developed, or new ideas causing people to form new companies.
But to listen to folks in places like Twitter is to listen to propaganda: as if Biden personally helped pick the 500,000-odd people who were hired according to the prior ADP report.
And it’s absurd, as well as an abuse of statistics.