President Trump dismissed Erika McEntarfer, the now-former Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), after rightfully accusing her of intentionally inflating employment numbers forward of the election to spice up Kamala Harris’s campaign. He pointed to a falsely reported “all-time excessive” in job figures that was later revised down by practically a million jobs, an error he described as probably the most extreme in over 50 years.
Supporting McEntarfer’s firing, Nationwide Financial Council Director Kevin Hassett cited a “partisan sample” in BLS reporting and emphasised the necessity for a “recent set of eyes” on the company.
Aside from mendacity concerning the complete variety of jobs created, roughly 1 / 4 of Biden’s job development in some intervals was authorities jobs funded by taxpayers, most job development was part-time employment whereas full-time jobs remained flat, workforce participation declined which artificially improved the unemployment charge, and due to Biden’s catastrophic inflation, actual wage development was damaging all through his presidency.
When Biden handed off the financial system to Trump, employment ranges have been nonetheless inferior to what Trump had constructed by 2019.
In 2020 and 2021, unemployment reached depression-era ranges due to the harmful COVID lockdowns, with the official charge hitting 14.7% in April 2020, the very best because the Nice Despair, although the precise charge could have exceeded 19% when accounting for measurement points.
After June 2022, when employment lastly returned to pre-pandemic ranges, 22% of the 6.6 million jobs created via the tip of Biden’s time period were government jobs (Fiscal State of the Union: Biden’s Actual-Wage Decline, Home Funds Committee).
In 2023, authorities positions accounted for practically 25% of all job good points, with some months seeing the general public sector chargeable for about one-quarter of complete job development. Authorities employment had the second-fastest development of any sector, trailing solely well being care.
Over the ultimate 12 months of Biden’s time period, the variety of full-time jobs remained basically flat, which means practically all job development got here from part-time employment. The truth is, December 2024 and January 2025 noticed the steepest two-month decline in full-time jobs because the COVID lockdowns of March and April 2020. By July 2025, 4.7 million People have been working part-time for financial causes—individuals who wished full-time work however have been both unable to seek out it or had their hours lower.
The unemployment charge underneath Biden was additionally artificially improved on account of a decline in labor drive participation. Though the labor drive participation charge rose from 61.3% in January 2021 to round 62.6–62.7% by mid-2024, it nonetheless remained 0.7 proportion factors beneath the pre-pandemic stage of 63.3% in February 2020.
When adjusted for inhabitants development, practically 2 million extra People have been on the sidelines in comparison with when President Trump was in workplace (Month-to-month Labor Assessment, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). By July 2025, the speed had fallen once more, dropping 0.5 proportion level over the 12 months to 62.2%.
At one level, inflation underneath Biden reached a 40-year excessive, severely impacting actual wage development. Though nominal wages rose, they did not preserve tempo with worth will increase. Biden touted rising earnings as successful, however in actuality, wages misplaced buying energy. Since he took workplace, actual wages have declined by over 5%. From January 2021 to Might 2024, actual common hourly earnings for all non-public sector staff dropped by 2.24%, whereas actual median weekly earnings for full-time staff fell by 2.14% from Q1 2021 to Q1 2024 (Month-to-month Labor Assessment, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Nominal hourly earnings grew 19.2%, from $29.93 in January 2021 to $35.69 in December 2024, however with costs rising 21.0% over the identical interval, actual wages fell by 1.5%. Over the complete span from January 2021 to January 2025, wages rose 19.9%, however costs rose 21.5%, leading to an general 1.3% decline in actual common hourly earnings.
Whereas complete employment ultimately surpassed pre-pandemic ranges, native-born employment remained effectively beneath development. The truth is, native-born staff held 121,000 fewer jobs than earlier than the pandemic and 5.5 million fewer than the pre-pandemic trajectory.
All web job good points because the begin of 2020 went to foreign-born staff, whereas native-born People skilled a web job loss. When evaluating complete employment to pre-pandemic ranges, the rise was simply 3.7 million jobs—nonetheless in need of the 6.7 million jobs created underneath President Trump earlier than the pandemic, which means Biden fell about 3 million jobs behind that benchmark.
