Vulnerable Democrat Susan Wild Claims 'A Lot of Economic Progress' in 2021 Despite Crippling Inflation

Jacob BlissJanuary 13, 2022

Rep. Susan Wild has continuously claimed there was “a lot of economic progress” in 2021, and the economic crisis is being “greatly exaggerated” despite rising prices, rising inflation, and hiring slowing down across the county.

In a recent op-ed with The Morning Call, Wild (D-CA) said that there was “a lot of economic progress in the last year,” saying America “got shots in arms, money in pockets, and job creation back on track.” She also touted the passage of the so-called bipartisan infrastructure bill.

However, in her op-ed, Wild acknowledged that one of the ways Congress needs to “focus on growing our economy” is to fix the supply chain crisis “to prevent the shortages and slowdowns that plagued storefronts for the past 18 months.”

Wild’s op-ed comes a month after she claimed during an appearance on MSNBC that it is important to keep the economic issues at the top of the list, but she “think[s] that the rumors” of there being an “economic demise are greatly exaggerated,” noting that America is “in really good shape going into 2022.”

She also claimed that “unemployment has plummeted,” and the “[American] employers that we were so worried about them having a workforce issue just a couple of months ago are now actually not filling as many jobs, or not reporting as many jobs open.” She added that the jobs are filling up, and Americans are spending more.

The unemployment rate has declined much faster than many economists expected, as Wilde claimed, falling from 6.7 percent at the start of the year to 3.9 percent in December. Total employment grew by six million jobs last year to nearly 149 million. And the total number of job openings has fallen from the record 11 million to a still extremely elevated 10.5 million. But the economy is still short millions of jobs when compared to before the pandemic.

“The economy hasn’t added one single job from the 2019 watermark. Not one. All the jobs that we have seen gained are recovered jobs that were lost. We are not yet producing new jobs,” said Neela Richardson, chief economist at payroll processor ADP, on CNBC Tuesday.

Wild’s MSNBC appearance came after she signed onto a letter with other vulnerable Democrats pushing for the Democrat-led House leadership to quickly pass legislation to address the ongoing supply chain problem that caused a spike in inflation.

Watch:

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While Wild has claimed economic progress, inflation has risen more than expected in recent months, and reports have shown that inflation rose by seven percent last year and hitting the highest level since June 1982.

In the final week of 2021, the initial claims for unemployment insurance slightly went up. The jobless claims for unemployment rose by 7,000 to 207,000 for the week ended January 1, after economists originally predicted a slight decline to 195,000.

Additionally, an analysis of the Labor Department’s November unemployment data showed that Wild’s state is in the bottom half of states, ranked 38 in jobs recovered from the pandemic. Pennsylvania has only recovered 68.2 percent of the jobs lost since the pandemic’s beginning. Pennsylvania also had a 5.7 percent unemployment rate, according to the data, which puts the state in the top ten states with the highest unemployment.

“Susan Wild clearly has her head buried in the sand. Families and small businesses are scraping by, and Democrats, who have control of every level of government, have failed to address it,” said Congressional Leadership Fund Press Secretary Cally Perkins. “With records like this, it’s no surprise Democrats are going to lose their Majority.”

Jacob Bliss is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter.