frankly the headline number, matt, is a big one here. also it shows healthy growth in several sectors of the economy. yeah, jim. this is blockbuster growth. and it is pretty remarkable. this number is going to go a long way towards shutting down this idea that the u.s. economy is already in recession. to be adding more than half a million jobs, in a month, at this stage of the recovery, is pretty impressive. let me give you some context around this 528,000 job figure. this is twice as much as the consensus from economists. not only that, but it is 200,000 more than even the most optimistic forecaster had pencilled in. two big milestones that came out of this report, the labor market has now fully recovered all of the jobs lost during covid. total nonfarm payroll is back to february 2020 levels. the unemployment rate is now down to 3.5%. that matches the half century low set before covid. again, none of this suggests an imminent or ongoing recession. but here is the problem,
following the headlines. natasha, first to you. this is a change from the white house. the white house is pushing back very hard on what it says is inf en inflammatory behavior by china. they said please don t up the ante here. now they re making public the fact that they have in fact summoned the chinese ambassador to the u.s. to the white house to essentially give him a dressing down about china s provocations against taiwan in recent days. they had said numerous times that they expected that china would have some kind of reaction to this visit by pelosi, which was extremely offensive to the chinese. but the white house has been, you know, kind of willing to respond in a meaningful way now to the chinese activities that we have seen around taiwan, which are really escalatory and are the most that we have seen in decades. so what the white house is saying now is that they re reiterating to the chinese that this is unacceptable, that the u.s. position on taiwan has not chan
jobs market help produce inflation and protect the economy? lots of questions here, but the headline number very good news. we are going to speak with labor secretary marty walsh in a few minutes. plus, a major boost for president biden s sweeping economic package, senator kyrsten sinema now on board with what is known as the inflation reduction act, giving democrats the 50 votes they need. there is still one hurdle, though, to overcome before it heads to a vet. and in china, the ministry of foreign affairs taking action in response to u.s. support of taiwan. that now includes halting future phone calls and is and meetings. the white house has summoned the chinese ambassador to the u.s. to condemn what it calls china s irresponsible military activities and we begin there. cnn white house reporter natasha bertrand, also cnn international correspondent selina wang