The blockbuster jobs report just gave Kamala Harris a boost where she needs it most

The strong September jobs report gave Vice President Kamala Harris the boost she needed on the economy.

The latest jobs report might be just what Vice President Kamala Harris needs.

After months of data reflecting a cooling labor market, the September jobs report came in surprisingly strong, with the economy adding 254,000 jobs, well above what economists expected.

The unemployment rate also unexpectedly ticked down to 4.1% in September; it was expected to hold at 4.2%, so the drop is another sign of a stronger-than-expected labor market.

With the presidential election a month away, the robust job growth looks like the boost Harris needs in the economy. After a bout of high inflation during the pandemic, the economy has typically been a weak spot for Harris and President Joe Biden.

The pace of inflation has slowed more recently, but many Americans have still reported financial strains from high grocery and gas prices, and they couldn’t quite see the country’s economic progress in their wallets.

The latest jobs report could change that — taking away some of former President Donald Trump’s basis for hammering Harris on the economy.

Matt Colyar, an economist at Moody’s Analytics, told B-17 that the closer Americans get to the election, the more important recent economic data becomes.

“That’s what people have in their minds. They don’t think about longer-running trends,” Colyar said, adding: “For the Harris administration, the past two days’ developments have been really good.”

Beyond a stellar jobs report, the dockworkers strike at East Coast ports ended, at least until January 15.

Harris will still have an uphill battle to fight in regard to Americans’ feelings about the economy. The Index of Consumer Sentiment from the University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers showed that while consumers in September were feeling better than in August, views on the economy remained poor.

In a Pew Research Center survey of US adults conducted from August 26 to September 2, only one-quarter of respondents said “economic conditions in this country today” were good or excellent. There was an unsurprising partisan split — Pew found a higher share of Democrats and Democratic-leaning people said this than Republicans and those who leaned Republican, at 41% and 10%, respectively.

Trump has frequently attacked the Biden administration over the economy, recently claiming in a campaign ad that Harris made inflation worse, referring to the 2021 American Rescue Plan. While the legislative package did contribute to inflation, various other factors, including supply-chain disruptions, caused prices to surge.

Americans will likely be thinking about the economy when they’re deciding whom they want in office. In a poll from The New York Times and Siena College in early September, a plurality of registered voters, 21%, said the economy was the most important issue in deciding their vote. Additionally, in a Pew Research Center survey conducted from August 26 to September 2, 81% of registered voters said the economy was “very important” in their voting decision.

It remains to be seen whether the “vibesession” Americans have been experiencing will persist, in which consumers feel bad about the US economy despite its health. Biden’s administration, however, is latching onto the news, saying Friday in a statement: “We received good news for American workers and families with more than 250,000 new jobs in September and unemployment back down at 4.1%.”

“With today’s report, we’ve created 16 million jobs, unemployment remains low, and wages are growing faster than prices,” the statement said.

“I think workers are feeling like we have more work to do,” Julie Su, the acting secretary of labor, told B-17. “We’ve been through a lot as a country, and we’re just getting onto solid footing, and we need to continue the policies and leadership that make that possible.”