Biden Flubs His Favorite Jobs Boast, Tells Union Crowd '12,000' New Jobs Were Created in 2 Years (April 19, 2023)

President Biden went to a union training center in Accokeek, Maryland, on April 19, 2023, to hammer House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s “MAGA economic vision” and ended up flubbing his own favorite statistic. “We’ve created more than 12,000 brandnew jobs in 2 years,” he told the crowd, a long way from the 12 million his White House liked to tout.

Biden spoke at the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 77 training center, the only public item on his schedule that day, according to the White House press pool [1][2]. Biden noted that McCarthy had been “speaking to the United States Congress a few hours ago” about the Republicans’ plans [1]. The video above shows the jobs line. Quotes are from the official White House transcript, published by the American Presidency Project.

”More Than 12,000 Brandnew Jobs”

“Folks, look around, and our economic plan is working. We’ve created more than 12,000 brandnew jobs in 2 years. That’s more than any President in American history has created in 4 years—in 4 years,” Biden said [1].

He moved right on: “Unemployment is at 3.5 percent, near a 50-year low” [1].

Biden was likely trying to say 12 million, Fox News reported, a figure the White House often touts even as Republicans say those were jobs coming back after the COVID-19 pandemic [3]. The official transcript, released by the White House press office the next day, kept the 12,000 figure as spoken, with no correction [1].

Not the First Time

Biden had made the same slip a month earlier while talking up the February jobs report. “All told, we’ve created more than 12,000 jobs since I took office. Nearly 8,000 of them manufacturing jobs,” he said then, according to Fox News [3]. Both times, the word “million” went missing, and both times the White House’s real talking point was 12 million [3].

The 12 Million Boast Under the Microscope

Even the number Biden meant to say came with asterisks.

PolitiFact rated a version of the claim, that Biden created more jobs in two years than any president did in an entire term, Half True. In raw numbers, it found, Lyndon Johnson, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton each saw bigger job gains over their full time in office than Biden’s 12.1 million at that point: 12.2 million, 16.1 million and 22.9 million [4].

Measured by percentage growth from the day a president took office, PolitiFact found, “Biden rates in the middle of the pack.” Johnson, Reagan and Clinton all had increases more than twice as big, and Biden also trailed Richard Nixon and Barack Obama [4]. The White House told PolitiFact that Biden meant any single presidential term [4].

Fox News, citing Bureau of Labor Statistics data, reported in February 2023 that the economy under Biden had added 2.7 million jobs overall. “The other roughly 9 million jobs had been lost during the COVID-19 pandemic when the economy was forced to shut down,” the network reported [5].

The Factory Boom, and the Paychecks

Biden went on to tout “nearly 800,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs, the fastest growth in 40 years.” He added: “Where in the hell is it written that says we can’t be the manufacturing capital of the world again?” and claimed “an alltime record for construction jobs” [1].

The government’s latest jobs report told a cooler story. In March 2023, employment “showed little change over the month” in both manufacturing and construction, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said. Leisure and hospitality was still 368,000 jobs below its pre-pandemic February 2020 level, and government employment was 314,000 below it [7].

Paychecks were also losing ground. Average hourly earnings for private-sector workers were up 4.2% over the previous 12 months, the bureau reported [7]. Consumer prices were up 5.0% over the same stretch, according to the March inflation report released a week before the speech [11].

Biden vs. “MAGA Republicans”

The jobs boast was part of a broader attack on McCarthy, who had addressed Wall Street two days earlier. “I’m here in this union hall with you when, just 2 days ago, the Speaker of the House, Kevin McCarthy, went to Wall Street to describe the MAGA economic vision for America,” Biden said [1].

“This ain’t your father’s Republican Party,” he told the union members. “And a minority of the party—the MAGA—I call the MAGA Republicans are—control the party” [1].

He accused Republicans of seeking “massive cuts in programs you count on” and of threatening “defaulting on America’s debt for the first time in 230 years” [1]. He also took a shot at Republicans’ clashes with the bureau: “MAGA Republicans in Congress want to defund the FBI and the police. Talk about defunding. They don’t like the FBI. Maybe it arrested some of them,” a line that drew laughter [1].

The Washington Examiner reported that Biden “heartily attacked” McCarthy in the speech [6].

The Deficit Line, Again

Biden also repeated his deficit boast. “In my first 2 years in office, I brought the deficit down by a record $1.7 trillion,” he said, adding that the Inflation Reduction Act “is going to bring down the deficit by hundreds of billions more in the decades ahead” [1]. Fact checkers had already called the $1.7 trillion claim misleading, as HYGO News detailed in its report on Biden’s deficit boast [3].

By the Numbers

236,000: Jobs added in March 2023, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report released 12 days before the speech. Unemployment was 3.5% [7].
12.1 million: PolitiFact’s count of jobs added in Biden’s first two years, as of February 2023 [4].
22.9 million: Jobs added under Bill Clinton, the biggest raw total of any postwar president [4].
About 9 million: Jobs that Fox News, citing BLS data, said were pandemic losses being won back [5].
4.2% vs. 5.0%: Wage growth versus consumer price inflation over the 12 months through March 2023 [7][11].
217-215: The House vote passing McCarthy’s Limit, Save, Grow Act a week after the speech [8].

What Happened Next

The debt fight. On April 26, 2023, the House passed McCarthy’s Limit, Save, Grow Act, 217-215. It would have suspended the debt limit until March 31, 2024, or until $1.5 trillion more was borrowed, while making trillions in spending cuts [8]. The White House had insisted it would not negotiate over the debt limit, as HYGO News reported in its page on Jean-Pierre’s no-negotiation line. About six weeks after the Accokeek speech, Biden signed the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, which suspended the debt limit through Jan. 1, 2025 [9].

The jobs numbers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics later found that job growth late in Biden’s term had been overstated. When the agency benchmarked its payroll survey to March 2025, it revised total employment down by 898,000, or 0.6%, from its published estimate, and spread the correction back over the months from April 2024 [10]. Most of that stretch fell on Biden’s watch.