The unemployment rate increased last month as the economy under President Biden struggles to return to pre-pandemic levels, according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“The unemployment rate increased by 0.2 percentage point to 3.7 percent in October, and the number of unemployed persons rose by 306,000 to 6.1 million,” the report said. “The unemployment rate has been in a narrow range of 3.5 percent to 3.7 percent since March.”
“The number of persons not in the labor force who currently want a job was little changed at 5.7 million in October and remains above its February 2020 level of 5.0 million,” the report added. “These individuals were not counted as unemployed because they were not actively looking for work during the 4 weeks preceding the survey or were unavailable to take a job.”
While Democrat President Joe Biden’s economy has failed to return to pre-pandemic job levels, the national figure is being dragged down by Democrat-led states. However, Republican-led states, like Texas and Florida, have had job levels well above their pre-pandemic numbers for months.
A report earlier this year from The Wall Street Journal, which analyzed federal data and numerous studies, explained how Republican-led states are “winning” the economic recovery by multiple measures. Notably, many Democrat-led states are still failing to reach the level of economic progress that Republican-led states reached months ago.
“Since February 2020, the month before the pandemic began, the share of all U.S. jobs located in red states has grown by more than half a percentage point, according to an analysis of Labor Department data by the Brookings Institution think tank. Red states have added 341,000 jobs over that time, while blue states were still short 1.3 million jobs as of May,” The Wall Street Journal reported.
