U.S. Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.), Ranking Member of the Joint Economic Committee, issued the following statement today after the Department of Labor announced 148,000 jobs were added in December:

“Despite inheriting a strong and resilient economy, the President and Republicans in Congress decided to do absolutely nothing to improve the lives of working Americans in 2017. Real wages only grew by 0.2 percent last year from the election through November. Almost one in five children currently live in poverty, and yet Republicans have failed to fund the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Nearly 800,000 young people who contribute to our economy have their immigration status hanging in the balance because Republicans refuse to bring the DREAM Act to a vote.

“And if that wasn’t enough, Republicans decided to blow $1.5 trillion that could have been invested in infrastructure or education to grow the economy on a disastrous tax bill that does little to help middle class families. By 2027, 99.2 percent of the tax cuts from this bill will go to the top five percent, while kicking 13 million Americans off their health insurance when it is fully implemented. In 2018, a New Year’s resolution for my Republican colleagues should be to take a different approach and work with Democrats to address the challenges that American families face.”

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Joint Economic Committee Democratic staff are comparing job growth each month to the average in the late 1990s (a boom time in the economy), but also to the best individual month each series has ever seen. Click here to follow our job tracker.

For more information, please contact Latoya Veal at Latoya_Veal@jec.senate.gov or 202-224-0379.