President Joe Biden on Friday insisted that the latest jobs report showed the U.S. was in good position to take on inflation.
Earlier, the Labor Department reported that U.S. employers added 678,000 jobs in February and the unemployment rate dropped from 4% to 3.8% despite surging inflation.
Economists had expected the U.S. to add roughly 400,000 jobs last month, far less than the actual gain, The Hill reported.
"While we must tackle head on the challenge families are facing with rising costs, today's report underscores that the United States is uniquely well positioned to deal with the challenge that inflation has posed across the world as we recover from the pandemic," Biden said in a statement.
The president said the jobs report showed that his "plan to build an economy from the bottom up" after the COVID-19 pandemic was succeeding.
"Today's report shows that my plan to build an economy from the bottom up and the middle out is working to get America back to work. Since I took office, the economy has created 7.4 million jobs," Biden said.
"That’s 7.4 million jobs providing families with dignity and a little more breathing room. We are building a better America."
The Republican National Committee disagreed with Biden's interpretation.
"Joe Biden is overseeing the great American pay cut. His out-of-touch agenda is driving real wages down, hiking costs for everything from gas to groceries, and leaving workers and families behind," the organization said in a statement.
"Republican-led states are the ones driving the economic comeback, with lower unemployment rates and more jobs recovered from the pandemic. Republican leadership delivers, unleashes prosperity, and lifts up all Americans."
The RNC said the February jobs report provided little consolation to American families and small businesses struggling in the Biden economy. It added that 70% of Americans believe the economy is getting worse under Biden, and noted that gas prices were at an eight-year high and projected to go higher.
The Republican response to Biden's first State of the Union address Tuesday night focused on inflation.
"The Biden administration believes inflation is 'a high-class problem.' I can tell you it's an everybody problem,'" Gov. Kim Reynolds, R-Iowa, said in the GOP response.
"I saw moms' and dads' paychecks buy them less and less. I watched working people choosing which essentials to take home and which ones to leave behind at the register. And now President Biden's decisions have a whole new generation feeling that same pain."
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