Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) praised the White House for a positive jobs report released Friday, saying, “The president is really bringing this in.”
The U.S. added more than 270,000 jobs in May, well above the expected 185,000, according to Labor Department data. However, the findings also showed that the unemployment rate rose slightly to 4 percent.
'The numbers don't lie. Things are great, and the president is really bringing this in, especially after the pandemic,” Frost said. said in an interview Friday with MSNBC's Chris Hayes. “I think the people who don't feel this, which is quite right, think about the high prices of things.”
Despite the good news, the Biden administration has struggled to communicate economic gains to voters as prices — from groceries to housing — remain high.
Nearly three in five Americans said in a recent Harris poll that the U.S. is still in a recession, despite record job creation under Biden and the longest stretch of unemployment below 4 percent since the 1960s.
Experts say everything from the lingering effects of four decades of high inflation to a changing media landscape are responsible for the divide in how Americans view the economy and what the statistics show.
The host of “All In with Chris Hayes” noted Friday that Americans don't think the economy is going up despite the data, saying “housing costs are a big problem for people” but that is “driven by local policies and the Fed'. not Biden.
Frost apparently agreed, adding that the president “has been focusing on junk fees, thinking about how we're going to help renters, how we're going to help people buy and build wealth.”
The May jobs report comes as the Federal Reserve is expected to meet next week to vote on whether to raise interest rates. Interest rates have remained largely stable this year and inflation is still above target.
