Biden points to Covid as a reason for disappointing jobs report, but argues progress is being made

In a speech at the White House, Biden pointed to the specific week when the survey for the monthly jobs report was done as one reason the number of jobs added in September fell below expectations.

"Today's report is based on a survey that was taken during the week of September 13. Not today, September the 13th -- when Covid cases were average more than 150,000 per day," Biden said. "Since then, we've seen the daily cases fall by more than one-third and they're continuing to trend down, and we're continuing to make progress."

In a troubling sign that Covid is still disrupting the economy, the new jobs report indicates that US employers added only 194,000 jobs in September.

September marked the second-straight month in which the US economy added far fewer jobs than expected. Jobs growth slowed down dramatically in August.

The unemployment rate declined to 4.8% in September, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday, down from 5.2% in August. Joblessness declined across the board, with the Black unemployment rate falling the most of any group -- to 7.9% from 8.8% in August.

Biden cited those statistics in trying to put a positive spin on the report.

"Today's report has the unemployment rate down to 4.8%, a significant improvement from when I took office and a sign that our recovery is moving forward even in the face of a Covid pandemic," Biden said.

Walsh did note some "bright spots" in the report, including the women's participation unemployment rate down to 4.2% and unemployment among Black women is down to 7.3%.

Earlier on Friday, Labor Secretary Marty Walsh said there were some bright spots in the report.

"This is not all doom and gloom here today. Certainly, we know, I would love to be on this show saying we added 3 million jobs to the economy and now we can go on to something else, but unfortunately we're still -- we're not there yet," he conceded.

As for what this portends for Democratic negotiations on the Biden economic agenda, Walsh made the argument that the weak job growth bolsters the need to pass the President's legislative priorities.

"I would hope that, you know, members of Congress and members of the Senate today look at this jobs report and see where the shortfalls are and understand that these investments that the President wants to make in these areas will have long-term, lasting, positive impacts on our economy moving forward," he continued.

The White House released a report on Thursday highlighting support for vaccine requirements across business and labor communities.

The report also details the positive economic effects among communities with high vaccination rates, including that "small business employee hours grew faster and stayed higher during the rise of the Delta variant in the states that have higher working-age vaccination rates, versus states with lower vaccination rates."

President Joe Biden is expected to speak about the new jobs numbers later Friday morning.

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