ICYMI - CHAIRMAN ARRINGTON ON MORNINGS WITH MARIA
WASHINGTON – House Budget Committee Chairman Jodey Arrington (R-TX), today joined "Mornings With Maria" on Fox News to discuss the new GDP (Gross Domestic Product) Report. While GDP was expected to grow at 2.9%, it was reduced to 2.7% annual pace.
The Biden administration continues to assert that the economy is steadily growing. When in reality, these feeble numbers are a clear sign that our economy remains deep in a recession. Every day, Americans are paying the real life consequences for the Democrats reckless spending and failed economic policies.
"I'll tell you, what's unacceptable, is with this self inflicted Biden recession that is punishing working families, many of whom are living paycheck to paycheck, their real wages, their income is down significantly. We're talking about hundreds of dollars a month. They're just barely getting by. They're evaluating their finances. They are tightening their belts. They're reevaluating their spending habits. Meanwhile, we can't even get the President and Democrats to the table to talk about common sense spending controls or some fiscal reforms in this debt ceiling negotiation."
This new growth rate number is slower than the 3rd quarter GDP release, which showed growth at 3.2%. Though appearing strong, much of growth is attributable to an expansion in inventories and a greater reduction in imports than exports. Removing these two anomalies from the report, the GDP growth would be just 0.8 percent.
"We've got a problem with labor in this country. Half of small businesses, according to NFIB, cannot fully staff up and there's there's a good reason we have policies in place on account of this administration that have disincentivized work. So that's one place to start to get the economy growing."
The current unemployment rate sits at 3.4 percent, while the labor force participation rate is only 62.4 percent. This means unemployment is lower now than the pre-COVID number, which was 63.3 percent. There are currently 11 million open jobs that can’t be filled, 4 million higher than the pre-COVID level.
