In the wake of the 2024 presidential election, a significant number of voters who supported Donald Trump expressed concerns about the state of the economy.
This sentiment has left many Biden-Harris administration supporters perplexed, given their belief that the U.S. economy has been thriving under President Biden's leadership.
The Biden-Harris administration and a plethora of left-leaning political commentators have frequently cited employment and unemployment statistics as evidence of their economic triumph. However, the voters remained skeptical, unconvinced by the optimistic headlines in The New York Times or the enthusiastic discussions on cable news shows.
A recent report by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia has now provided Trump voters with data to substantiate their doubts. The report reveals that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) under the Biden-Harris administration overestimated employment in 25 states in the second quarter of 2024. Conversely, the BLS's initial employment figures were found to be inflated in only two states.
The Philadelphia Fed's updated data indicates a 0.1 percent decline in second quarter state payroll employment, suggesting a net job loss compared to the previous year. This contradicts the preliminary employment data released by the White House earlier this year, which suggested an increase in states' employment numbers during the same period. According to the original figures from the Biden-Harris administration, there was a national employment increase of 1.8%, with the national survey data showing a 1.1% increase.
The researchers at the Philadelphia Fed believe these figures were significantly inaccurate. They estimate that the Biden-Harris administration's previously reported employment figures were off by 1.2 to 1.9 percentage points, depending on the survey data used. This discrepancy, when applied to employment figures across all 50 states, equates to an overestimation of national employment by as many as 3 million jobs.
The question arises: how could the Biden-Harris administration have made such a substantial error? While it is challenging to definitively establish, there is speculation that the White House may have manipulated the employment surveys to present a more favorable economic picture.
This suspicion is fueled by the fact that previous employment figures are seldom revised to the extent that the second quarter 2024 numbers will be, according to other reports from the Philadelphia Fed. For instance, the Philadelphia Fed's preliminary state employment data for the second quarter of 2023 differed by just 0.1 percentage points from the more accurate data reported later in the year.
Interestingly, similar overestimations of employment were found in some 2022 reports, another crucial election year. It is also noteworthy that in these reports, the more accurate numbers revealed much lower employment than initially reported. This pattern was also observed in the Philadelphia Fed's most recent report for the second quarter of 2024.
Over the past three years, when the Biden-Harris administration has significantly revised its state employment figures, they have most often been revised downward. This raises the question: are these errors coincidental, or has the Biden-Harris administration been deliberately inflating employment figures?
Only a thorough congressional investigation and the passage of time will provide the answers.
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