White House Officials Optimistic Over Labor Dept. Report Showing 467K New Jobs

Declaring “America is back to work,” President Biden today touted the latest Labor Department report which shows the economy gained 467,000 non-farming jobs in January, despite a major spike in coronavirus cases caused by the omicron variant.

The nation’s unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 4.0 percent

The positive jobs report came as surprise to many economists, who predicted weak growth or possibly even a loss of jobs because of the resurgence of the pandemic. The Bureau of Labor Statistics report also included significant upward revisions of both the December and November job numbers.

“Our country is taking everything that Covid can throw at us and we’ve come back stronger,” Biden told reporters at the White House. “America’s job machine is going stronger than ever.”

The positive news comes just days after the U.S. Treasury announced that the national debt had topped $30 trillion for the first time in history. Deficit spending soared in the last two years as Congress and two administrations took extraordinary measures to try and shore up the economy and keep people safe.

Many Republicans feel that, as important as the initial Covid relief packages were, the Democrats pushed for –- and were able to push through -- too much.

“We cannot keep spending the way we’re spending right now,” said Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK1) in an interview Thursday, “and have any solvency for our future generations.”

Congressman Hern is a fiscal conservative who is committed to pushing for a balanced budget, something that hasn't been seen in Washington since the last years of the Clinton administration. He says that's the only way to start reducing the country's indebtedness, but he's not optimistic.

"I said last year, about three months ago, by the time the election for the new Congress in January 2023 came around we’d be somewhere around $35-$40 trillion in debt," Hern said. "and if the Democrats have their way and get some of these bills passed, we’ll be very close to that."