America has reached its soft landing official claims

The threat of a recession has been looming over the United States ever since the end of the global pandemic. However, the country has finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. 

During a recent television interview with CNN, Yellen explained the country was in what could be described as a soft landing—the long-stated goal of the Biden administration’s economic policies over the last two and a half years. 

“What we’re seeing now I think we can describe as a soft landing, and my hope is that it will continue,” Yellen said during her January 5th interview, and the recent data released shows the Treasury Secretary’s opinion may be right. 

Government figures released on January 5th showed that US job growth jumped during December with nonfarm payrolls increasing by 216,000 in the month while the total rise in employment in 2023 was 2.7 million. 

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that in addition to the payroll numbers, the rate of unemployment in the United States sat at 3.7% with the total number of unemployed in the country remaining steady at 6.3 million people. 

“This morning’s report confirms that 2023 was a great year for American workers,” he said in a statement. “The economy created 2.7 million new jobs in 2023 — a year when the unemployment rate was consistently below 4 percent — more jobs than during any year of the prior administration.”

Yellen noted that the country’s wage growth stats were the real economic winner according to Bloomberg News, which reported that the Treasury Secretary said hourly earnings were up by 4.1% in 2023 through to the month of December. 

Moreover, given that economists were predicting an inflation rate of 3.2% by year's end, it would mean that the country had actually exceeded the probable wage growth many thought the country would see by the end of the year. 

Yellen declined to comment on the actions taken by the Federal Reserve over the year and the impact they may have had but said that the current path of the job market did indicate the institution made good decisions in 2023. 

The Treasury Secretary had been optimistic about the prospects of the country over the previous two years according to Bloomberg News, and now Yellen has been taking what could be considered a victory lap on her achievements. 

“For two years the Treasury chief consistently rejected the gloomiest predictions for the US economy even as the central bank pursued an aggressive rate-hiking campaign through much of 2022 and 2023,” wrote Christopher Condon.

“While never ruling out a recession altogether, she repeatedly said she saw a 'path to a so-called soft landing,' Condon continued, and the Treasury Secretary has been making the most of her current situation. 

During her CNN interview, Yellen noted there had been a lot of unwarranted worry about the state of the American economy. “A year ago, most forecasters believed we would fall into a recession. Obviously, that hasn’t happened.”

In December, economists increasingly predicted that the country’s soft landing was near according to CNBC, job openings were rising and the labor market was weakening to what many considered the best possible point. 

However, the outlook at the time hadn’t helped Joe Biden in his bid for reelection. Data showed that despite the Biden administration's economic wins, much of the country still thought he was doing a bad job on the economy.  

Biden ended 2023 with a 39% job approval rating according to Gallup. This was up from his recent low point of 37% in November but it didn’t reflect the many economic victories Biden has seen over the previous four months.