President Joe Biden said July’s expectations-beating jobs report shows that his economic policies are working, and he urged Congress to advance legislation that would spend trillions of dollars on public works, education and other priorities.
“The Biden plan is working,” the president said at the White House on Friday. “The Biden plan is producing results. And the Biden plan is moving the country forward.”
U.S. payrolls climbed by 943,000 in July according to the Labor Department, the biggest addition in nearly a year, exceeding the median estimate of an 870,000 gain in a Bloomberg survey of economists. The unemployment rate dropped by half a percentage point to 5.4%, fueled by a surge in economic activity as more Americans were vaccinated against the coronavirus.
The rosy report — which also saw stronger-than-expected earnings and an upward revision of the June jobs figures — offers momentum to the White House as Biden seeks to build congressional support for a $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill, as well as a Democrat-only spending-and-tax package that could total as much as $3.5 trillion.
