“The President made clear he wants to double down on more of the same failed policies that gave welfare to the wealthy and well-connected and high prices to working people.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (MO-08) issued the following statement after the Bureau of Labor Statistics released the February 2024 jobs report:

“With the unemployment rate rising to the highest in more than two years, it makes no sense that the President wants to double down on more of the same failed policies that gave welfare to the wealthy and well-connected and high prices to working people. President Biden isn’t a jobs president. This report shows the number of unemployed people grew last month, and that manufacturing is losing jobs – so much for his so-called manufacturing boom, which has actually been a boom for China, big banks, and billion-dollar corporations. Most of the manufacturing jobs he took credit for last night at the State of the Union were created before Democrats voted to hand out ‘green’ welfare checks to special interest groups in the so-called Inflation Reduction Act. 

“Americans work hard to support their families, but their paychecks buy less than when Joe Biden became President. President Biden has no plan to help working parents forced to spend over $10,000 more every year because of Bidenflation. The American people are frustrated and sick and tired of a President that is completely out of touch with the daily lives of working Americans. President Biden doesn’t get it, and he showed that again at the State of the Union.”

READ: Chairman Smith’s statement on the State of the Union

Key Background:

• Majority of new manufacturing jobs while Biden was president came before both the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and CHIPS and Science Act.
• Job creation for December and January is 167,000 lower than originally reported.
• Prices have increased 17.9 percent since President Biden took office.
• Due to inflation and slow wage growth, real wages have fallen 4.2 percent since President Biden took office.
• Inflation outpaced wages for 26 straight months of Biden’s presidency.
• The Federal Reserve has raised rates 11 times to combat the spike in prices.
• Mortgage rates reached a 23-year high of 7.8 percent in October 2023. The average monthly mortgage payment has increased by $1,077 and is 95 percent higher than when President Biden took office in January 2021.
• The average monthly payment on a new car reached a record $739 in the latest calendar quarter, according to Edmunds, up nearly 30% since Biden took office.  Down payments also exceeded $7,000 for the first time, up from $4,729 in Q1 of 2021.
• Credit card interest rates are at the highest level in nearly three decades, while consumer credit debt has reached an all-time high of more than $1.1 trillion and the number of Americans struggling to pay credit card bills is back up to the same level as during the worst part of the COVID-19 pandemic.