![CNBC's Joe Kernen told Council of Economic Advisers' Heather Boushey the administration cannot take credit for the roughly 10 million jobs created if they are also going to blame the pandemic for other shortcomings. [Screenshot CNBC]](https://images.dailycaller.com/image/width=960,height=411,fit=cover,f=auto/https://cdn01.dailycaller.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Screen-Shot-2022-09-19-at-9.45.06-AM-e1663595170618.png "CNBC's Joe Kernen told Council of Economic Advisers' Heather Boushey the administration cannot take credit for the roughly 10 million jobs created if they are also going to blame the pandemic for other shortcomings. [Screenshot CNBC]")
CNBC’s Joe Kernen told a Biden adviser Monday the administration cannot take credit for the roughly 10 million jobs created if they are also going to blame the pandemic for other shortcomings.
Kernen and Council of Economic Advisers’ Heather Boushey were discussing the state of the economy when the host noted the dramatic increase in mortgage rates, as well as how “gas prices are still up probably 60 or 70% from where they were before the president took office.”
“Gas prices have come down phenomenally, Joe,” Boushey pushed back. “You cannot deny that that is a -”
“They were $2 and change when he came into office,” Kernen butted in.
“And we have had a global – we had a geopolitical crisis that has upended oil markets which is why the president is so focused on moving us toward electric vehicles,” Boushey said.
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“If you’re going to blame everything on the pandemic for inflation, then you have to acknowledge that reopening after the pandemic is why we just got back to basically the job we had before the pandemic, the 10 million just got us back to even,” the host argued. (RELATED: ‘Just An Inch, Hardly At All’: Biden Downplays Inflation Growth)
Boushey pushed back, saying the U.S. is “on a better path now” but that “it is true that inflation is higher now than it was before but it is also true that we have seen some signs of abatement in the past couple of months and that we’re doing everything we can to get that back down.”
Just before the nation went into lockdown in February of 2020, the U.S. had approximately 152.5 million total nonfarm employees. That number dropped to 130.5 million during April of the same year. Since Biden has taken office, the U.S. has still yet to reach its pre-pandemic levels. Jobs that have been regained are largely due to the ending of pandemic related restrictions.
Meanwhile, the August Consumer Price Index (CPI) report showed the CPI rose 8.3% year-to-year and 0.1% over the past month. Food prices increased at the highest rate since 1979, coming in at 11.4%. Core prices, which exclude food and energy, were at 6.3%, a significant increase from July’s 5.9%.