White House pins 'weak' jobs numbers on Biden, touts Trump plan

The White House on Friday sought to blame former President Joe Biden for lower-than-expected U.S. job gains in January, using the new numbers to argue that President Donald Trump has inherited an ailing economy and temper expectations about inflation.

The Labor Department's latest monthly nonfarm payrolls report, which spanned the end of the Biden era and the start of Trump's second term in office, showed a mixed picture.

While nonfarm payrolls rose by 143,000 in January — below Dow Jones' forecast of 169,000 — the unemployment rate ticked down to 4%. And although jobs numbers for the 12-month period ending March 2024 were revised sharply downward, the number of people reported as being at work soared.

Payroll figures for November and December were both revised upward, as well.

But the White House quickly framed the report as a dud borne of Biden's policies.

"Today's jobs report reveals the Biden economy was far worse than anyone thought, and underscores the necessity of President Trump's pro-growth policies," White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Friday morning.

National Economic Council director Kevin Hassett added at the White House, "The truth is that we're inheriting a very difficult jobs market because of Joe Biden's terrible policies."

Hassett emphasized that the new report made downward revisions to past months' job figures, asserting that those revelations will influence the trajectory of economic indicators, including the inflation rate.

"I think the big news for us is that it was a weak jobs number and the downward revisions, which we've seen a pattern of over the last few years, were really, really stunningly bad," Hassett said.

"When you're thinking about what this does to markets and to inflation and so on, be mindful of the fact that we just had the biggest downward revision for the American jobs record that we've had since 2009," he said.

This is developing news. Please check back for updates.

— CNBC's Jeff Cox contributed to this report.