According to recent reports, the unemployment rate has reached its highest point in nearly three years. In July, it rose to 4.3% after a lackluster jobs report showed fewer added jobs to the economy than expected. As the economy has become one of the most critical topics for voters ahead of the election, this is a bad sign for the Biden-Harris administration.
Based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics data, only 114,000 non-farm jobs were added to the economy last month, substantially missing analysts’ expectations of 185,000. This represents the highest unemployment rate since late 2021, and it is 0.8% higher year-over-year. To make matters worse, global stocks experienced a significant dip on Monday.
The report stated, “The unemployment rate rose by 0.2 percentage point to 4.3 percent in July, and the number of unemployed people increased by 352,000 to 7.2 million.” It provided further context for the numbers, “These measures are higher than a year earlier, when the jobless rate was 3.5 percent, and the number of unemployed people was 5.9 million.”
Moreover, the bureau explained that the recent landfall of Hurricane Beryl has not had an impact on the numbers either. “Hurricane Beryl had no discernible effect on the national employment and unemployment data for July, and the response rates for the two surveys were within normal ranges,” the disappointing jobs report added.
The statistics also seem to indicate that white men experienced the most significant declines in employment. “Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (4.0 percent) and Whites (3.8 percent) increased in July. The jobless rates for adult women (3.8 percent), teenagers (12.4 percent), Blacks (6.3 percent), Asians (3.7 percent), and Hispanics (5.3 percent) showed little or no change over the month,” the report explained.
Heritage Foundation economist E.J. Antoni also pointed out that native-born Americans have suffered the most in job losses over the past year. “Over the last year, native-born Americans have LOST 1.2 million jobs while foreign-born employment has increased 1.3 million; we’re just swapping out American workers at this point, not growing the pie for everyone,” he said.
The American Tribune recently reported on commentary from Vice President Kamala Harris’ team regarding the jobs reports, where they outright blamed former President Donald Trump for the data that fell short of expectations. Harris for President spokesperson James Singer released a statement that read, “Donald Trump failed Americans as president, costing our economy millions of jobs and bringing us to the brink of recession.”
Singer continued, suggesting that Project 2025 would end up hurting the economy and making conditions worse for the middle class. “Now, he’s promising even more damage with a Project 2025 agenda that will decimate the middle class and increase taxes on working families,” Singer said on behalf of Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign.
Singer further criticized Project 2025, claiming that it would cut taxes for Americans “while ripping away health care, raising prescription drug costs, and cutting Social Security and Medicare — all while making his billionaire donors richer.” Despite criticism that the Biden-Harris administration has failed on the economy, Singer claimed, “We’ve made significant progress, but Vice President Harris knows there’s more work to do to lower costs for families.”
Watch Trump call out Biden and vow to fix the economy below:
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