Scott Statement on April Jobs Report
WASHINGTON – Ranking Member Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (VA-03) released the following statement after the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy added 175,000 jobs in April, and the unemployment rate ticked up from 3.8 to 3.9 percent.
“Four years ago, the economy lost 20.5 million jobs, the unemployment rate shot up to 14.7 percent, and the initial unemployment claims sky-rocketed to more than 6.1 million.
“Four years later, because of the investments made by Congressional Democrats and the Biden-Harris Administration, the United States economy is outperforming almost every other industrialized country. And today’s jobs report underscores just how far we have come. Since President Biden took office, the economy has added 15.4 million jobs, the unemployment rate is 3.9 percent, and the seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims are closer to 200,000 each month.
“America’s success was not guaranteed. Our success is directly attributed to Congressional Democrats and the Biden-Harris Administration’s investments in workers and their families. Despite Republican attempts to discredit our country’s historic economic progress, the indisputable fact is that when President Biden took office, he inherited an economy which produced the worst job performance in approximately one hundred years. And today, the number of unemployed Americans has remained below 4 percent for the longest continuous period in 50 years. The numbers speak for themselves.
“We must keep working to build the economy from the bottom up and middle out and ensure fairness for workers. This week, Committee Democrats released a new report that details how employers feel emboldened to violate labor laws because of weak or nonexistent civil monetary penalties. Monetary penalties are supposed to serve as a deterrent and hold employers accountable for labor law violations. However, today, they have become, in some cases, the ‘cost of doing business.’
“We must fix this problem and restore the balance. Later this month, I plan to introduce legislation to responsibly increase these penalties to deter dishonest employers from violating workers’ rights and putting law-abiding businesses at a competitive disadvantage—just one prong of a policy agenda that seeks to treat all workers with dignity and ensure their health and safety in the workplace.”
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