The U.S. economy added 303,000 jobs in March, surpassing economists’ expectations of 200,000 jobs. The unemployment rate also dipped slightly to 3.8 percent. This positive trend follows several months of strong jobs numbers and the longest stretch of sub-4 percent unemployment since the late 1960s.
Despite the Federal Reserve’s decision to hold interest rates at a two-decade high in recent months, the labor market has remained resilient. The central bank raised rates to their current range of 5.25 percent to 5.5 percent over the past year and a half to curb inflation.
Inflation has significantly eased since reaching a 40-year high of 9.1 percent in June 2022. As of February, consumer prices were up just 3.2 percent year-over-year. However, Fed officials have stated that they need to see more positive inflation data before beginning to cut rates.
Despite these positive economic indicators, President Biden faces challenges on economic issues as he heads into November’s election. Former President Trump, now the presumptive Republican nominee, continues to poll better with voters on the economy. In a recent Wall Street Journal poll of voters from seven swing states, 54 percent said that Trump would best handle the economy, compared to 34 percent for Biden. Furthermore, 56 percent of voters said the economy had worsened in the past two years, and 74 percent said inflation was moving in the wrong direction.
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