Former Vice President Joe Biden said Friday that President Donald Trump deserves “no credit” for May’s jobs report, which saw unexpected increases despite the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
Friday’s report found that the economy gained 2.5 million jobs in May, while the unemployment rate fell to 13.3%. (RELATED: Gretchen Whitmer Leads George Floyd Protest Without Social Distancing)
“Let’s be clear, the president who takes no responsibility for costing millions and millions of Americans their jobs deserves no credit when a fraction of them return,” the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee stated.
Biden criticized the president’s recovery proposals, accusing him of putting “wealth over work.”
“As we recover some of the temporary job losses, we’re still not on track to grow back in a way that will actually really serve working people,” Biden added. “President Trump is still rewarding wealth over work. All we hear coming out of the White House these days is calls for more tax cuts for big investors, big corporations. They didn’t build this country. The middle class built this country. Unions built the middle class. That’s who I fight for.”
WATCH:
The American economy lost tens of millions of jobs after state and local governments shut down their economies in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic. The economic gains of the past month seemed to come as a shock to investors and media outlets that had prepared for the worst.
“The U.S. economy is more resilient than expected,” chief strategist at Principal Global Investors Seema Shah told CNBC.
The Washington Post published a search engine optimization headline that claimed a “grim milestone to be reached with unemployment rate expected to be close to 20 percent.”
The president reacted to the report by sarcastically congratulating himself.
“Really Big Jobs Report. Great going President Trump (kidding but true)!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
Really Big Jobs Report. Great going President Trump (kidding but true)!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 5, 2020