President Biden repeated a misleading claim during his State of the Union address Tuesday about the number of total jobs and manufacturing jobs that his administration has "created" since he took office two years ago.
"Two years ago, our economy was reeling," Biden remarked. "As I stand here tonight, we have created a record 12 million new jobs, more jobs created in two years than any president has ever created in four years."
"We’ve already created 800,000 good-paying manufacturing jobs, the fastest growth in 40 years," he continued. "Where is it written that America can’t lead the world in manufacturing again?"
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Biden later again added that he had "created 800,000 manufacturing jobs" even before the bipartisan CHIPS and Science Act, legislation the White House has said will create thousands more manufacturing jobs, was enacted last year.
However, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the economy under Biden has actually added 2.7 million overall jobs. The other roughly 9 million jobs had been lost during the COVID-19 pandemic when the economy was forced to shut down.
And rather than 800,000 manufacturing jobs, the economy has really created just 214,000 manufacturing jobs since Biden took office, BLS data showed.
The speech marked the second State of the Union address that Biden has delivered since taking office in January 2021. It is the first such speech that he has given since Republicans won back majority control of the House.
