Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA), Vice Chair of the Joint Economic Committee, issued the following statement after the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that nonfarm payroll employment grew by 225,000 in January and the unemployment rate was 3.6 percent.

 “I’m happy to see the economy continued to add jobs at a healthy rate in January, thanks to the dynamism of American businesses. More people are returning to the workforce and that’s another positive.  

“But, there are storm clouds on the horizon, including slowing global growth and uncertainty surrounding the economic impacts of the coronavirus. The president’s ill-conceived trade war has hurt the global economy and helped push American manufacturing into recession. Even with the strong overall employment gains in the past few months, manufacturing job growth has stalled, with the sector adding no jobs over the past four months and just 6,000 over the past half a year.

“The president claimed in his State of the Union speech that we are experiencing the “best” economy in American history. However, job growth has slowed dramatically under President Trump. In the first three years of his administration, 1.5 million fewer jobs, or 42,000 per month, have been added than in the last three years of the Obama presidency. This inconvenient fact was omitted from the president’s address.

“Many people, even those working, are being left behind. The Republican tax cuts have ballooned the budget deficit, making it harder to invest in America’s future and exacerbating inequality.”

Congressman Beyer is currently serving his third term in the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Northern Virginia suburbs of the nation’s capital. In addition to his role as Vice Chair of the JEC, Beyer serves on the House Committee on Ways and Means and the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. He represents the largest number of federal employees of any member of the House.

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