EDITORIAL: Those Biden-Harris job growth numbers? Never mind
Strong job growth has been the safe haven for the Harris-Biden administration amid a storm of inflation, soaring energy costs and high interest rates. But now it appears even that may have been an illusion.
On Wednesday, the Labor Department revealed that monthly job growth figures for the 12 months ending in March had been overstated by an estimated 818,000, a downward revision of 28 percent. That’s the largest such change since 2009. The updated figures represent “a sign that cracks in the labor market are more severe — and began forming earlier — than initially believed,” The New York Times reported.
“We’ve known that things on net were probably moving gradually in the wrong direction,” Guy Berger, director of economic research for the Burning Glass Institute, a labor market research and data firm, told the Times. “This just largely confirms what a holistic view of the labor market data was saying before today.”
Voters should note that the revisions coincide with the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where Democrats have proposed a host of new government market interventions — price controls on food! — to address the problems their own policies have inflicted on American families struggling to cope with persistently higher costs for everyday staples and consumer goods and services.
Ms. Harris is desperately trying to pass off the limited economic plan she unveiled last week — characterized by its deep, abiding faith that there is no ill that can’t be solved through the benevolence of the federal bureaucracy spending trillions of other people’s money — as an example of the kind of “change” she will bring to the White House. In reality, it’s more of the same policy olio that triggered 9 percent inflation, drove gasoline prices beyond $5 a gallon and has led homeowners to blanch every time they open a utility bill.
Her plan would even further depress job growth. On Monday, Ms. Harris announced support for a 33 percent increase in the corporate tax rate. That’s a recipe for stunting wages and industrial expansion while raising prices and burdening the economy. Who does the vice president think will be on the hook for this higher levy? Corporations don’t pay taxes, they collect them from the consumers who purchase their products.
The U.S. economy has failed many Americans during the Harris-Biden years. The drastic reduction in job growth numbers further erodes the White House’s efforts to slap lipstick on the pig. And Ms. Harris’ economic agenda — at least to the extent she has been allowed to talk about it so far — is a recipe for making things much worse.