The president said, “We are on the right track. Our plan is working. And we are not going to let up now.”
He argued that now is the time to “build on the foundations we have laid for the nation’s recovery” and adopt his two economic proposals, the American Jobs Plan and the American Rescue Plan. The proposals would invest heavily in infrastructure, education, paid vacation and childcare, among other things.
“No other major economy in the world is growing as fast as ours. No other major economy is gaining jobs as quickly as ours. And none of these successes is a coincidence. It’s out of luck, ”said Biden in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
Biden said, “America is finally on the move again. As we continue this recovery, we will encounter some bumps along the way. Of course it will. We can’t restart the world’s largest economy as if we’re moving on. ”A light switch. There will be ups and downs in jobs and business reports. “
The May job report showed that the US job market was picking up some momentum and was an improvement on the disappointing April job report. The unemployment rate also fell to 5.8% in May, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Friday.
Although it was an improvement from April, which had a revised 278,000 new jobs, the number of jobs created last month was still below the 650,000 jobs economists had predicted. The U.S. also still saw 7.6 million jobs shed from February 2020 before lockdowns were put in place across the country to stop the spread of Covid-19.
But the labor force participation rate was 61.6% in May, which shows that the unemployment rate has fallen because people found a job, not because they left the labor market.
Biden on Friday announced his administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic and the $ 1.9 trillion sweeping Covid-19 relief bill he signed earlier this year, which will provide economic relief to Americans and businesses across the country procured.
More than 50% of American adults are now fully vaccinated against Covid-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Covid-19 cases have decreased.
The president’s comments come before a phone call he expects to have Friday afternoon with West Virginia top Republic negotiator Shelley Moore Capito about the infrastructure package, a source familiar with the plan told CNN.
Republican lawmakers and the White House are far apart when it comes to bipartisan agreement on an infrastructure proposal. Earlier this week, Biden offered to cut the price to $ 1 trillion but said he wanted to make sure it was “new money” and not diverted from funding already approved by Congress like Republicans are doing the Senate said a GOP source said the talks.
Biden’s proposal, which was originally $ 2.25 trillion, focuses on rebuilding the country’s crumbling infrastructure and moving the country to more green energy. Republicans have grappled with the size and scope of the plan, as well as the way Biden plans to pay for it. The president has proposed a corporate tax hike to pay for his plan, and Republicans say changes to the 2017 tax cuts signed under then-President Donald Trump are a “red line” in the negotiations.
Biden has raised the idea in previous private conversations of postponing its proposed funding mechanism – a series of corporate tax increases, including a hike in the rate from 21% from 2017 to 28% – to allay GOP concerns.
The proposal, which was put on the table at the meeting with Capito on Wednesday, would instead rely on significantly increased tax enforcement and the introduction of a minimum corporate tax of 15%, which would target companies that have used loopholes to seek payment of a substantial Part of avoiding taxes, a source said.
Jared Bernstein, a member of the President’s Economic Advisory Council, told MSNBC on Friday morning that the new minimum corporate tax rate is “intended to be a safety net against the kind of loopholes that have pervaded our tax law and that are so beneficial to those at the top.”
Promoting the May job report, Bernstein said the unemployment insurance program was critical to the country’s success and disproved the idea of canceling insurance at the time.
“I hear some of these calls in such a way that we are essentially saying that while we are making these significant strides towards our goals, we are kind of cutting down the policy and, you know – stop, stop, get out. No, we have to keep going until we get there, “said Bernstein.
He noted that the insurance program will run until the beginning of September, which in his opinion “is very much like the analogy that we get there, but we are not there yet and we have taken steps that will automatically adjust when this program comes in early September from. “
Labor Secretary Marty Walsh on Friday denied criticism that the expanded unemployment benefit is preventing people from returning to work. Walsh told CNN’s Poppy Harlow that the perks, passed as part of the president’s US bailout plan, allow families “to put food on the table and have a roof over their heads when their jobs come back, when they do open their industries. ”
This story has been updated with additional information.
CNN’s DJ Judd, Manu Raju and Phil Mattingly contributed to this report.