As the White House prepared to celebrate a milestone of jobs-gained under President Biden’s first 100 days, the devastating April jobs repost spoiled those plans.
Punchbowl News reported that senior White House staffers were watching the job estimates created 700,000 jobs, as they were eager to promote the record number of jobs created during Biden’s first 100 days in office.
“If the U.S. economy adds 700,000 jobs in this latest report, that will be 2 million new jobs in the first 100 days of the new administration,” the report read, “Joe Biden would be the first president to reach 2 million jobs in that time period.”
The White House had prematurely scheduled an 11:30 event. The plan was for Biden to deliver remarks before leaving Washington, DC, to spend the weekend in his home in Deleware.
On the schedule for Biden and Harris, a meeting with the jobs cabinet and an economic briefing for Friday afternoon. Presumably, to bring spread the news, a press briefing with Treasury Secretary Janet Pullen was scheduled by Press Secretary Psaki.
Friday’s job numbers report showed that unemployment ticked up to 6.1 percent, and only 266,000 jobs were created in April. Previous job gains were also revised down.
President Biden boasted of his record creating jobs on Thursday, anticipating gains.
“One of the things that — that I’m proud of is, in the first 100 days that I became President, we have created more jobs in that period of time than any administration in history,” he said proudly at an event in Louisiana.
White House chief of staff Ron Klain suggested the jobs report bolstered the notion that there was too much spending in the coronavirus relief package after retweeting analysis from TMP’s Josh Marshall.
