Thread by @JewhadiTM

Biden Says ‘Generous’ Unemployment Benefits Not Responsible for Biggest Jobs Report Miss in History. He’s (Obviously) Wrong

fee.org/articles/biden… via @feeonline

“Economists were hoping for a figure roughly 1 million jobs larger,” Axios reported, “making this the biggest miss, relative to expectations, in the history of the payrolls report.”

Bloomberg writer Mohamed A. El-Erian, an economic adviser at Allianz SE, said the report constituted “the biggest data miss on record.”

“The jobs miss comes two months after Biden signed into law a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package that included a six-month expansion of federal unemployment benefits, which pay unemployed workers an additional $300 per week on top of their state unemployment benefits.

These increased benefits mean in many cases people make less money returning to work, which economists warned prior to passage of the legislation would create a disincentive for workers to return to the labor force.

“Expanding unemployment benefits during a recession has a predictable result: slower employment recovery,” Texas Tech economist Alex Salter told FEE in February. “We should be helping people get back to work—not making it more financially attractive to stay home.”

This is precisely what the Biden administration did, however. The results have been a weak economic recovery and a record labor shortage. For some... the labor shortage has proven fatal to their business.”