The U.S. economy added 256,000 jobs in December, beating economist’s expectations and cementing the fact that President Joe Biden is leaving Donald Trump a strong economy as his term comes to a close.
The report showed unemployment fell to 4.1%, while wage growth rose 0.3% to an average hourly rate of $35.69. Ultimately, wage growth in 2024 rose 3.9%—outpacing the 2.7% inflation rate, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The “economy remains very robust,” Harvard economics professor Jason Furman wrote in a post on X. “A variety of indicators show the labor market has stabilized. There doesn’t seem to be any pressing reason to change interest rates any time soon.”
The report, released by the BLS, is the final full monthly report of Biden’s tenure.
It showed that the U.S. had positive job growth every single month Biden was in office. And that average hourly wages today are higher than the $29.92 average hourly rate when Biden took office in January 2021.
Biden touted his success with managing the U.S. economy in a statement, writing:
With today’s report of 256,000 new jobs in December, we have created over 16.6 million jobs over the course of my administration and this is the only administration in history to have created jobs every single month. Although I inherited the worst economic crisis in decades with unemployment above 6% when I took office, we’ve had the lowest average unemployment rate of any administration in 50 years with unemployment at 4.1% as I leave. Although forecasts were projecting it would take years to achieve a full recovery, we have had the strongest growth and employment creation of any advanced country, brought inflation back down, and achieved the soft landing that few thought was possible.
Ultimately, the report will be the benchmark to determine the success of Trump’s soon-to-be second term in office.
It’s the second time Trump is inheriting a robust economy.
When Trump took office in 2017, he was handed a 4.7% unemployment rate from President Barack Obama. By the time Trump left office, the unemployment rate jumped to 6.4%, which Biden had to contend with.
Trump, for his part, won a second term in office by trashing the economy and promising to lower the price of goods. However, he has since backtracked on that claim after the election.
“Look, they got them up. I’d like to bring them down. It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up. You know, it’s very hard,” Trump said in a December interview with Time when discussing the cost of grocery prices.
What’s more, while Trump has promised to bring prices down, his policies are expected to do the exact opposite. Experts say Trump’s plan to impose sweeping tariffs on all imported goods could cause inflation to skyrocket and send the economy into a tailspin.
Ultimately, we should bookmark this story as Trump’s term in office is set to begin to see just how destructive his agenda will be on Americans’ jobs and livelihoods.
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