President Biden said Friday that the weak jobs report for January shows the urgency for Congress to approve his $1.9 trillion coronavirus rescue plan.
“We can’t do too much here, but we can do too little,” Mr. Biden said in an Oval Office meeting with House Democratic leaders. “This is about people’s lives, this is not just about numbers. We’ve got a chance to do something big here.”
The president hosted the meeting as he seeks support for the emergency spending proposal, which could pass the House and Senate without Republican votes.
The Senate approved a budget bill early Friday that paves the way for passage of the $1.9 trillion coronavirus relief package, with Vice President Kamala D. Harris casting the tie-breaking vote.
Mr. Biden noted that the Labor Department’s jobless report on Friday showed that hiring slowed significantly in January, with employers adding 49,000 jobs. At the current rate, the president said, it would take “10 years to get to full employment.”
“That’s not hyperbole, that’s a fact,” Mr. Biden said. “We’re going to be in a situation where it takes a long, long time.”
About 10 million people who lost their jobs in the past year during the pandemic are still unemployed. The jobless rate in January fell to 6.3%, down from 6.7% in December.
Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas, the top Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, blamed Mr. Biden for the weak jobs report.
“Businesses are terrified of President Biden’s assault on jobs and industries his administration hates,” Mr. Brady said in a statement. “In his first days in office, he has taken action to kill more than one million good-paying energy jobs, and has promised to go further.”
He said there is “little stimulus in the president’s nearly two-trillion dollar ‘stimulus.’ And unless he begins to work with Republicans in earnest, Americans will suffer tepid job growth as the new normal.”
The president said he worries about the emotional toll on the unemployed.
“They are really hurting,” he said. “Just look at all the number of people who are needing and seeking mental health help… Suicides up… People really feel in a hole. Real, live people are hurting, and we can fix it. We can fix it, and the irony and all ironies is, if we help them, we are also helping our competitive capacity through the remainder of this decade.”
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers warned in an op-ed on Friday that there is a risk of higher inflation if the sixth rescue package is approved. White House Council of Economic Advisers member Jared Bernstein said Mr. Summers is “wrong in a pretty profound way.”
“This is a job market that is calling out for the magnitude of intervention that is in the American Rescue Plan,” Mr. Bernstein said on CNN. “We have to go big and we have to go bold… to finally put this crisis and finally put this virus behind us. That doesn’t mean there are no risks.”
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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