A Biden administration senior official and mainstream media outlet seemingly mocked the millions of Americans who believe they were better off under former President Donald Trump by pointing to job losses during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent lockdowns.
Julie Su, President Joe Biden’s acting labor secretary, was appearing on MSNBC’s The Weekend show on Sunday when host Michael Steele turned to the results of a poll that showed that many more voters choose Trump when it comes to the economy over Biden, 51% to 32%.
After noting the poll, Steele questioned the reasoning of the Trump backers by citing U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data showing 701,000 jobs were lost in March of 2020 — the month that marked the beginning of the unprecedented lockdowns and business restrictions — while about 303,000 jobs were reportedly added last month.
Steele then asked Su, “What say you, madam secretary, to those Americans who still think that the COVID era of Donald Trump, they were better off than the recovery era of Joe Biden?”
The poll, conducted by Marquette Law School, did not appear to indicate that respondents were asked to consider specifically the economy under Trump during the lockdowns. Regardless, Su dismissed the polling majority as incorrect.
“That’s right,” Su said, agreeing with Steele’s characterization. She continued:
“I mean, I say it’s unfortunate that some people try to peddle a story of nostalgia for something that just wasn’t true. I say that — I mean, look at the numbers, right? The numbers don’t lie. You know, the last president kept talking about an infrastructure week that never materialized. President Biden has delivered on an infrastructure decade, where we’re seeing projects, shovels hit the ground in communities all across the country, and it’s just — you know, it’s irresponsible to suggest anything else and, you know — I don’t know what to say about that.”
She laughed as she finished speaking.
Critics on the right argued that the typical person considers more factors when assessing the economy than job losses and gains. RNC Research posted the MSNBC clip to X along with statistics that might indicate why someone could reasonably favor Trump over Biden when it comes to the economy. The group claimed:
“FACT: Gas was $2.39/gal when Biden took office; today, gas is up 50%. FACT: Real average weekly earnings are down 4.2% under Biden; they were up 8.2% under Trump. FACT: Inflation has averaged 5.6% under Biden; it averaged 1.9% under Trump. FACT: Average 30-yr fixed mortgage rates were ~2.7% when Biden took office; they’re ~7% today.”
The Dallas Express asked Charles Franklin, professor of law and public policy and director of the Marquette Law School Poll, to comment on Steele and Su’s interpretation of the polling results. Franklin said that although Steele correctly cited the poll results and job numbers, “the issue is comparing job loss in the early months of the pandemic with current jobs.”
Franklin added that public perception of the economy under the Trump presidency would not be limited to the pandemic period.
“What happened during the pandemic is certainly relevant, but picking the worst times of the pandemic is not representative of how the economy was seen or performed over the first three years of the Trump administration. Arguably, the pandemic was exceptional,” he told DX.
FactCheck.org, a left-leaning media outlet, called out the Biden administration for misleadingly using the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic response, which saw unprecedented job losses, to make the current economy under Biden look better by comparison.
The outlet, however, claimed that Biden was correct in touting job numbers under his presidency, as the country has added an average of 411,000 jobs per month. It contrasted those numbers with job growth under Trump before the pandemic, which it claims was about 180,000 per month.
