Biden-Harris administration overstated job growth by over 800,000 – Trump calls it a ‘massive scandal’

The Biden-Harris administration’s Labor Department overestimated job gains by 818,000 and was forced to revise the total downward in its annual preliminary benchmark.

The DOL had previously estimated that the economy would create about 242,000 jobs per month. However, a tally of payroll data from April 2023 to March 2024 found that only 174,000 jobs were created each month.

Nearly half of the downward revisions were in the professional and business services sector, which declined by 358,000 jobs. The DOL also overestimated leisure and hospitality by 150,000, retail trade by 129,000 and manufacturing by 115,000.

The administration’s revision of nearly -30% of employment figures marks the most significant overestimation since 2009. However, the final figures will not be published before February 2025.

Former President Donald Trump criticized the Biden-Harris administration for inflated jobs figures, calling it a “massive scandal.”

On Wednesday morning, Trump wrote on social media: “The Harris-Biden administration has been caught fraudulently manipulating jobs statistics to hide the true extent of the economic ruin they have inflicted on America.”

“New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that the Administration has inflated the numbers by 818,000 additional jobs that do not exist and never existed,” Trump continued. “The real numbers are much worse than that, and if Comrade Kamala stays four more years, millions more jobs will disappear overnight and inflation will completely destroy our country.”

Trump warned that a Harris-Walz administration would wipe out Americans’ life savings.

“With a TRUMP VICTORY, we will once again have the greatest economy in history,” he said.

During his visit to North Carolina on Wednesday afternoon, Trump said: “That’s not really a revision. That’s a total lie.”

Jared Bernstein, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, issued a statement defending the administration, saying that “neither the preliminary nor the final revision directly affects estimates of job growth in recent months — an important consideration when assessing the current labor market.”

“The -818,000 estimate is stuck at -68,000 over 12 months of job growth, from April 23 to March 24. If confirmed – which we won’t know until February 25 – that would push job gains over that period from 2.9 million to 2.1 million,” Bernstein continued, “or from about 240,000/month to 170,000/month. The latter figure, which is also the average of the last 3 months, is more than enough to keep the pace of the expansion going.”

“The preliminary revision (which will change before being official) to benchmark wages does not change the fact that this is and continues to be a strong jobs recovery, fueled by real wage gains, solid consumer spending and record small business creation,” he said.

Like Blaze News? Bypass censorship, sign up for our newsletters and get articles like this delivered straight to your inbox. Register here!