- The September jobs report came in stronger than expected, with 254,000 jobs added.
- With the election a month away, it could give Kamala Harris the boost she needs on the economy.
- Trump has frequently blamed Harris and Biden for inflation and negative consumer sentiment.
The latest jobs report might be just what Vice President Kamala Harris needs.
After months of data reflecting a cooling labor market, the September jobs report came in surprisingly strong, with the economy adding 254,000 jobs, well above what economists expected.
The unemployment rate also unexpectedly ticked down to 4.1% in September; it was expected to hold at 4.2%, and the drop is another sign of a stronger-than-anticipated labor market.
With the presidential election a month away, the robust job growth might just give Harris the boost she needs on the economy. After a bout of high inflation during the pandemic, the economy has typically been a weak spot for Harris and President Joe Biden.
The pace of inflation has slowed more recently, but many Americans have still reported financial strains facing high grocery and gas prices, and they couldn’t quite see the country’s economic progress translated to their wallets.
The latest jobs report could change that — taking away some of former President Donald Trump’s ammunition to hammer Harris on the economy.
Matt Colyar, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, told BI that the closer Americans get to the election, the more important recent economic data becomes.
“That’s what people have in their minds. They don’t think about longer-running trends,” Colyar said, adding that “for the Harris administration, the past two days, developments have been really good.”
Recent days have included not only a stellar jobs report but also the end for now of the dockworkers’ strike at East Coast ports.
Harris will still have an uphill battle to fight on Americans’ feelings about the economy. The Index of Consumer Sentiment from the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers showed that while consumers in September were feeling better than in August, views of the state of the economy remained poor.
A Pew Research Center survey conducted from August 26 to September 2 found only a quarter of US adults said “economic conditions in this country today” are good or excellent. There’s an unsurprising partisan split — Pew found a higher share of Democrats and Democratic-leaners said this than Republicans and Republican-leaners, at 41% and 10%, respectively.
Trump has frequently attacked the administration over the economy, recently claiming in a campaign ad that Harris made inflation worse, referring to the 2021 American Rescue Plan. While the legislative package did contribute to inflation, a range of other factors, including supply-chain disruptions, caused prices to surge.
Americans will likely be thinking about the economy when they’re deciding who they want in office. A poll from The New York Times and Siena College in early September found that a plurality of registered voters (21%) said the economy was the most important issue in deciding their vote. Additionally, a survey that the Pew Research Center conducted from August 26 to September 2 found that 81% of registered voters said the economy was “very important” in their voting decision.
It remains to be seen if the “vibecession” Americans have been experiencing will persist, in which consumers feel bad about the economy despite a healthy US economy. Biden’s administration, however, is latching onto the news, saying in a Friday statement that “we received good news for American workers and families with more than 250,000 new jobs in September and unemployment back down at 4.1%.”
“With today’s report, we’ve created 16 million jobs, unemployment remains low, and wages are growing faster than prices,” the statement said.
“I think workers are feeling like we have more work to do,” Acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su told Business Insider. “We’ve been through a lot as a country, and we’re just getting onto solid footing, and we need to continue the policies and leadership that make that possible.”
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