USA. 2024 Starts with Labor Market Growth

Despite the Federal Reserve leaving rates unchanged for the fourth consecutive month, the U.S. economy is showing signs of good health. The labor market data for January 2024 is particularly impressive, with 353,000 new jobs created, while the December 2023 figure was also revised upward (330,000 jobs created). The unemployment rate is 3.7% and has remained below the 4% threshold for two years, something not seen in 50 years, reports the Italian economic newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore. Among the new jobs created, 74,000 are categorized as new jobs, 70,000 in health care, 45,000 in retail trade, 36,000 in food service, and 23,000 in manufacturing. For all of 2023, three million new jobs were created. Actually, according to some analysts, this is one of the “weapons” in the hands of a shaky President Joe Biden in view of the next presidential election, in which he will likely have to deal with Donald Trump again.

The Bidenomics, or bottom-up economic policies promoted by the current president (which contrasts with the famous Reaganomics that instead envisioned a backwards, top-down approach to stimulate the economy), seem to have paid off.

And Biden, commenting on the jobs data, wasted no time riding the wave, explaining that “the U.S. economy is the strongest in the world. Today we got further proof of that,” also highlighting that in addition to the number of jobs that grew above expectations, average wages also increased by 4.48%, according to a statement from the Labor Department.

“Since I took office, our economy has created 14.8 million jobs, unemployment has been below 4 percent for two full years, and inflation was at a pre-pandemic level of 2 percent during the last six months.” In the midst of the campaign, Biden also explained that his mission would be to “thwart efforts by Republicans in Congress to enact sweeping tax breaks for the wealthy and big companies; cut Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security programs; and increase spending for American families.”