bill provides to work toward a bipartisan agreement on a full year funding bill the makes the needed investments in our economy and people from public health to education to national security. now for today s news, everyier december brings the joys of the holiday season and gives us an opportunity to reflect on the year gone by and look ahead and begin to imagine the new year to come. this year we can reflect on an extraordinary bit of progress. our economy is markedly stronger than it was a year ago. and today the incredible news that our unemployment rate has fallen to 4.2%. at this point in the year we are looking at the sharpest one-year decline in unemployment ever. simply put, america is back to work. and our jobs recovery is going very strong. today s historic drop in the unemployment rate includes dramatic improvements for workers who have seen higher wages and higher levels of
he also talked about the number of jobs added since he took office, 6 million jobs in the first full ten months that president biden has been here at the white house. but still, the president was acknowledging the economic anxieties that so many americans are feeling right now with covid-19 and the economy, the white house considers the two of those really tied together towards recovery. take a listen. we re looking at the sharpest one-year decline in unemployment ever. simply put, america is back to work and our jobs recovery is going very strong, but i also know that despite this progress, families are anxious, they re anxious about covid. every day my team and i are working to deliver consistent, determined, focused action to overcome the challenges we still face. now as you heard right there, president biden s voice was a little hoarse and deeper than usual, and he was asked by reporters immediately finishing his remarks about how he was
but unemployment numbers, at the same time, look good, falling to 4.2%. president biden, not surprisingly, chose to focus on the good unemployment figure. we re looking at the sharpest one-year decline in unemployment ever. simply put, america, america is back to work, and our jobs recovery is going very strong. joining me now is jason fuhrman, former chair of the counsel of economic advisers, currently a senior fellow at the peterson institute for international economics. jason, make sense of these two numbers for me. you know, the government goes out and they ask people if they re working. and they ask businesses, did you hire anyone. both of those surveys have measurement error. both of them have merit. when i look at these numbers all in, i think it s very likely that november was a genuinely strong month for labor market recovery.
slowed last month. the november jobs report fell short of expectations with employers adding 210,000 jobs last month, but the unemployment rate ticked down to 4.2%, as more people joined the workforce. cbs weijia jiang has reaction from the white house. reporter: on wall street, stocks slid in response to thelh offered mixed signals about the u.s. economy, a weaker-than-expected jobs number, but also a drop in unemployment, bringing it to the lowest point since the start of the pandemic in march 2020. president biden, who is nursing a cold, celebrated the progress. we re looking at the sharpest one-year decline in unemployment ever. simply put, america, america s back to work. and our jobs recovery is going very strong. reporter: but americans are still facing sky-high prices on everthing from groceries to
so, so overall, i think the household survey is leading the way. throughout the pandemic, the household survey has been showing appointment doing much better, and as was just mentioned, part of that is sort of, you know, a return to gig work. people being able to do delivery of food and the return of people using ride services. so i think this is kind of we ll see if this was a stronger report than what we see now. mike, what can we expect the president to say when he speaks any moment now? well, jose, i know we don t pay attention to presidential tweets as much as we used to, perhaps, but president biden s account did just tweet something about, this jobs number that i think serves as a preview of what he s going to say. the president s twitter account saying that america is back to work and our jobs recovery is going strong, not talking about