Biden Offers Grim Economic Outlook: '10 Years Before We Get to Full Employment'
President Joe Biden said it will take “10 years” to reach “full employment” following the release of a Labor Department jobs report Friday.
“Only 6,000 private-sector jobs have been created. At that rate it’s going to take 10 years before we get to full employment,” the Democratic president told House Democrats in the Oval Office on Friday.
“That’s not hyperbole, that’s fact. We are going to be in a situation where it’s going to take a long, long time.”
President Biden comments on jobs numbers during meeting with House Democrats in Oval Office. pic.twitter.com/cAYOaJi1od
— CSPAN (@cspan) February 5, 2021
The labor market report showed that 49,000 jobs were added to the economy in January, and only half of the 22 million jobs lost at the height of the coronavirus pandemic have been recouped, Reuters reported. Roughly 10 million jobs have yet to be recovered.
Biden seems to be using the latest job report to push his $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package.
He pushed back against critics of his plan, including former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, who has said the plan is too big, Axios reported.
“We can’t do too much here, we can do too little,” Biden said.
“Real, live people are hurting. And we can fix it. And we can fix it. And the irony of all ironies is when we help them, we are also helping our competitive capacity through the remainder of this decade.
“I mean, it’s real. So we’ve got a chance to do something big here.”
The Senate voted 51-50 on Friday — with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote — to advance the budget resolution that will be used to quickly pass Biden’s coronavirus relief proposal, according to Axios.
“And just a month from that day, we have taken a giant step to begin to fulfill our promise to the American people that a Democratic Senate, a Democratic House and President Biden will have their back and move them forward during this awful crisis,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said on the Senate floor.
The resolution will next be sent to the House of Representatives for approval before committees can start writing the bill.
The resolution was passed after a marathon Senate session bringing amendments on issues such as a $15 minimum wage, The Associated Press reported.
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa put forward an amendment against raising the wage during the pandemic that was adopted.
Another amendment prevented the $1,400 in direct checks in Biden’s relief proposal from going to “upper-income taxpayers.”
None of the amendments is binding.
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