Gov. Glenn Youngkin, trying to position himself for what will be a doomed bid at the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, is trying to walk a fine line on touting jobs numbers.
The fine line has him trying to tout positive jobs numbers at the state level as the general thrust from Republicans is that the economy is in a shambles, which of course cannot possibly be mutually exclusive.
“On Day 1 we declared that ‘Virginia is open for business,’ and April’s strong employment numbers – the highest labor force participation rate in nearly a decade – are just the latest example that Virginia is on the move,” Youngkin said.
This was from a press release from the governor’s office; notably, it wasn’t from his PAC, which it probably shouldn’t have been, because the press release wasn’t reporting news, but rather, all about politics.
That’s your tax dollars at work, folks.
It’s good news, no doubt. Virginia’s labor force participation rate rose 0.3 of a percentage point to 66.2 percent in April, the highest rate since June 2014, back during the second term of the Obama administration.
Other good news from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics Local Area Unemployment Statistics survey: more than 25,000 more Virginians were employed in April than March, the number of employed residents increased by 25,127 to 4,410,619 in April, and the number of unemployed residents decreased by 3,440 to 140,129.
The survey also has the Virginia unemployment rate at 3.1 percent, a tick lower than the national rate of 3.4 percent.
This would indicate that Virginia’s good economic numbers are a function of the good economic situation overall.
Which, in turn, undercuts the chief argument from Republicans heading into 2024, that President Biden has driven the U.S. economy off a cliff.
Youngkin, of course, doesn’t want you to think about how Virginia’s burgeoning economy and the burgeoning economy nationally are joined at the hip.
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Chris Graham
