A former investment banker and founding partner of Puck, an online news company, and a CNN host on Wednesday appeared to not understand why people believed that the economy under President Biden was bad.
William Cohan, author and founding partner of Puck, explained to CNN host John Berman why he believes President Joe Biden deserves credit for good economic conditions, and was unable to understand why many Americans are unhappy with the U.S. economic situation. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released data for June, which showed that inflation remains well above the 2% target and jobs are growing slower than expected, with some predicting a recession in the future. (RELATED: Economists Warn Of Coming ‘Recession’ Due To This Overlooked Warning Sign In Latest Jobs Report)
“I don’t have an explanation for why people think it’s bad because, objectively, it is good. It’s hard to imagine it could be much better,” Cohan said in an interview on CNN. “Inflation could be lower, but unemployment could hardly be lower, our economy is growing, our GDP is growing.”
.@PuckNews‘ @WilliamCohan runs cover for the Biden economy: “I don’t have an explanation for why people think it’s bad because objectively, it is good. It’s hard to imagine it could be much better … People like being unhappy about a lot of things in America right now” pic.twitter.com/431SWhUfP4
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 13, 2023
Jobs underperformed expectations in June, with the U.S. only adding 209,000 jobs as opposed to 225,000 jobs as predicted by a Reuters survey of economists, with 60,000 of those new jobs being with the government.
Inflation fell but remained high at 3.0% on an annual basis, with core CPI, which excludes the volatile categories of energy and food, being higher at 4.8% year-over-year in June.
Berman probed Cohan on his views on why people are discontent with the economy despite the positive picture Cohan painted, asking if he believed that “there is an element that people just like being unhappy?”
“People like being unhappy about a lot of things in America right now unfortunately, and I think when Mitch McConnell says his goal is to make sure Barack Obama doesn’t have a second term, when he says, ‘I’m not going to allow a Supreme Court justice to be nominated’ that should have been nominated by Barack Obama, when Donald Trump says he won the election when he lost the election,” Cohan said to CNN. “I think people are just in a foul mood. No one wants to give credit to Joe Biden for what is a remarkable situation with the economy.”
Data from the BLS showed in June that 452,000 additional part-time jobs were added for economic reasons, indicating that more Americans were unable to find full-time employment or that businesses were unable to give workers enough hours to qualify as full-time.
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