On the economy, critics of President Joe Biden contend he has a substance problem. The White House and its allies claim that Biden has a messaging problem. Both are true.
Last Friday, the government published jobs data for May. The left-leaning media touted the report as good news, showing that the economy added 270,000 jobs. In fact, the data was terrible for ordinary Americans. It shows that fewer Americans were working in May than in April, and that those who were employed needed to work more jobs to make ends meet. These are substantive economic problems for Biden.
The celebratory reaction of the White House and the pro-Biden media illustrates the disconnect between the pundits, bureaucrats, and academics on the one hand, and working Americans on the other. Americans don’t particularly like when their leaders celebrate the economic misfortunes of Americans. That is Biden’s messaging problem.
Number of Jobs vs. Number of People Working
There are two different ways to view employment data. The first is to examine how many jobs people are working. The second is to look at how many people have jobs.
Take, for example, an economy that has three people and three jobs. Such an economy could have three people each with one job and no unemployed. Alternatively, such an economy could have one person working three jobs and two people unemployed. The May jobs report shows a trend moving toward the latter scenario instead of the former.
The government tracks and publishes both
