To avoid ‘historic shellacking’ in midterms, Biden is promoting a sunny view of US economy

The president takes every opportunity to remind Americans that the unemployment rate is just 3.6%, which is near a half-century low. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

As he celebrated the impressive May jobs report on Friday, Joe Biden went to great lengths to paint a rosy picture of the US economy. While acknowledging the difficult reality of high prices caused by near record-high inflation, Biden pointed to the 390,000 jobs created last month to argue that the US is in a strong economic position.

“I know that even with today’s good news, a lot of Americans remain anxious, and I understand the feeling,” the US president said. “But there’s every reason for the American people to feel confident that we’ll meet these challenges.”