Massive job revision pulls the veil off Biden’s happy-face economy, critics say

The U.S. economy added 818,000 fewer jobs from early 2023 to early 2024 than the government previously reported, a sizable revision that could affect the Federal Reserve’s decisions on interest rates and reverberate in the presidential campaign.

The Labor Department said monthly figures overstated job growth in the 12-month period that ended in March. 

Wednesday’s report was part of a routine annual process. However, the revision was the biggest downward change since the financial crisis in 2009. 

It also adds to previously reported signs of an employment slowdown, which sparked a major selloff on Wall Street earlier this month.

Former President Donald Trump pounced on the news as he worked to erase Vice President Kamala Harris’ emerging polling lead. He called the revision a “massive scandal.”

“The Harris-Biden Administration has been caught fraudulently manipulating Job Statistics to hide the true extent of the Economic Ruin they have inflicted upon America,” he wrote on Truth Social. “If Comrade Kamala gets another four years, millions more Jobs will VANISH overnight, and Inflation will completely destroy our Country.”

Others said the revised numbers offered a clearer look at what had seemed obvious to some economists.

Alfredo Ortiz, CEO of Job Creators Network, a conservative advocacy group, said, “This dramatic downward revision of job creation confirms what JCN and those on Main Street have long said: The labor market is far weaker than topline numbers suggest and has been dominated by government and quasi-government jobs. This fuller view of the jobs market nullifies a year’s worth of exaggerated headlines that have helped the Biden-Harris administration present a false picture of economic strength.”

The White House has insisted the economy remains in a strong position. After the Aug. 5 stock market crash, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “While there’s been some volatility, our economy is indeed resilient.”