Biden’s Numbers, July 2023 Update

Summary

In our seventh installment of this feature, gauging how various factors have changed under President Joe Biden, we found:

• The economy added 13.2 million jobs under Biden, putting the total 3.8 million higher than before the pandemic.

• The unemployment rate dropped for a time to the lowest in nearly 54 years; unfilled job openings surged, with over 1.6 for every unemployed job seeker.

• Inflation roared back to the highest level in over 40 years, then slowed markedly. In all, consumer prices are up nearly 15.7%. Gasoline is up 51.2%.

• Weekly earnings rose briskly, by 12.2%. But after adjusting for inflation, “real” weekly earnings went down 3.4%.

• The S&P 500 has increased 20.2%

• The percentage of Americans without health insurance has gone down by 1.3 percentage points.

• Consumer confidence is 6.4 points lower, according to a University of Michigan index, but it has gone up for two straight months.

• The number of apprehensions of those trying to cross the southern border illegally dropped dramatically in June, but is still up 310%.

• U.S. crude oil production has increased 8.2%; imports are up 7.3%.

• The trade deficit for goods and services climbed 30.1%.

• Debt held by the public has gone up 18.9%.

• Refugee admissions have increased 38.5%, but that’s 2,556 refugees per month on average — far short of Biden’s campaign goal of admitting 125,000 a year.

Analysis

We started “Biden’s Numbers” in January 2022 and have published updates every three months since then on the latest data from authoritative sources on how the U.S. is faring. We ran similar quarterly series for former Presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump.

Readers can form their own opinions on whether a president deserves credit or blame for these statistics — and how much. We take no position on that.

The starting point for these measurements matters. Biden has boasted of inflation dropping and wages rising faster than prices — and that has happened in recent months. But we start the clock when Biden took office.

Jobs and Unemployment

The number of people with jobs has increased dramatically since Biden took office, far surpassing pre-pandemic levels.

Employment — The U.S. economy added 13,235,000 jobs between Biden’s inauguration and June, the latest month for which data are available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The June figure is 3,833,000 higher than the February 2020 peak of employment before COVID-19 forced massive shutdowns and layoffs.

One major category of jobs is still lagging, however. Government employment is still 161,000 jobs short of the pre-pandemic peak. That includes 95,500 fewer public school teachers and other local education workers. 

Unemployment — The unemployment rate fell from 6.3% at the time Biden took office to 3.4% in January and again in April, the lowest since June 1969. Most recently the rate has crept up to 3.6% in June. That’s just 0.1 point above the pre-pandemic rate.

Job Openings — The number of unfilled job openings soared, reaching a record of over 12 million in March of last year, but then declined after the Federal Reserve began a steep series of interest rate increases aimed at cooling the economy to bring down price inflation.

The number of unfilled jobs has slipped down to 9.8 million as of the last business day of May, the most recent month on record. That’s still an increase of over 2.6 million openings — or 37% — during Biden’s time.

In May, there was an average of over 1.6 jobs for every unemployed job seeker. When Biden took office, there were fewer jobs than unemployed job seekers.

The number of job openings in June is set to be released Aug. 1

 — One reason many job openings go unfilled is that millions of Americans left the workforce during the (the percentage of the total population over age 16 that is either employed or actively seeking work) has slowly recovered during Biden’s time, from 61.3% in January 2021 to 62.6% in June.