Bonkers: Bloomberg News Co-Founder Champions Biden Economic Performance as ‘Unbeatable’

Bloomberg news co-founder Matthew Winkler had arguably one of the most ridiculous takes on President Joe Biden’s performance on the economy yet.

Winkler wrote a Dec. 20 op-ed with an outrageous headline, “Biden’s Economic Performance Has Proved Unbeatable.” The piece read like a press release from the Biden White House itself. Winkler’s bizarre assessment was based upon 10 economic measures he spun for the pro-Biden narrative. Here was his hot take: “America’s economy improved more in Joe Biden’s first 12 months than any president during the past 50 years notwithstanding the contrary media narrative contributing to dour public opinion.” Winkler attributed his glowing praise in part to Biden’s disastrous $1.9 trillion stimulus. 

The biggest distortion came from a subsection headlined, “Jobs Boom,” where Winkler claimed that “Only [former President Jimmy] Carter tops Biden for best growth in payrolls in their first year in office.” The BBC fact-checked Biden for making parallel claims concerning his performance on job growth in a Nov. 24 piece: “this job growth comes from a low base point, given that in April last year, unemployment hit its highest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s.” 

In other words, it’s easy for Winkler to spin jobs growth as a “jobs boom” when you  have 11 million job openings caused by businesses recovering from government-imposed shutdowns and people are just now returning to work amidst an atrocious labor shortage. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Dec. 3 that “Nonfarm employment has increased by 18.5 million since April 2020 but is down by 3.9 million, or 2.6 percent, from its pre-pandemic level in February 2020.” Barron’s Magazine just released a piece headlined, “The Labor Shortage Is Creating Unprecedented Hiring Challenges. Who’s Coming Out on Top.” 

Winkler also made some blatantly false claims. For example, Winkler said “Americans are certainly feeling good” because of a surge in consumer credit, which he said projected “high economic confidence.” But this is not true. PBS News reported in November that consumer confidence dropped to nine months low. The U.S. Misery Index — a measure started under President Lyndon Johnson that combines the unemployment rate and the inflation rate — spiked up again to a score of 11.01, the second highest reading in Biden’s presidency. Biden had an impressive 9.88 as the average index, which is sixth among presidents since Harry Truman. The concept for the index is that joblessness and steep rises in the cost of living spread misery among the country’s residents. This is observably true, given that Axios just reported that “Worker pay isn’t keeping up with inflation.” But ignore all that because — wink, wink — the economy is doing just swell, isn’t it Winkler?

But even on the more positive side of the economy — GDP growth — Winkler gaslit his readers. He claimed that GDP surged at an average of 5.03 percent in each of the three quarters of 2021 and is part of what “makes Biden’s first year in the White House the standout among the seven previous presidents.” Winkler said “[m]uch of the credit goes to The American Rescue Plan.” Here’s the issue with that claim, as pointed out by BBC: “[A] large part of the recovery happened under former president Donald Trump.” 

Conservatives under attack Contact Bloomberg News at letters@bloomberg.net and demand it distance itself from Winkler’s biased pro-Biden advocacy.