No American president likes to see a weak jobs report, but the White House in concert with Democrats on Capitol Hill quickly turned Friday’s disappointing April numbers into a rallying cry for taking decisive action to shore up the economy. 

Speaking from the White House, President Joe Biden said the meager addition of 266,000 jobs last month meant “more help is needed,” not less.

“Thank goodness we passed the American Rescue Plan,” Biden noted. “But we can’t let up, this jobs report makes that clear.”

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Biden said the recovery would be a marathon, not a sprint. The rescue plan, he explained, was intended as just that: a rescue plan. “But it’s not nearly enough. We have to build back better,” Biden added, urging the need for his American Jobs Plan. 

The president also use the data to beat back concerns conservatives have raised about trillion-dollar investments causing inflation. “For those who worried the economy would overheat, this shows that economy still needs help,” Biden argued.

The Republican National Committee was quick to criticize the jobs report even as GOP lawmakers continue to downplay the need for Biden’s jobs and families plans. In a tweet, the RNC listed three bullet points for April:

Unemployment INCREASED
18,000 manufacturing jobs were lost
Economy added only 266,000 jobs, far below expectations.

When a reporter asked White House press secretary Jen Psaki about her message to Republicans who reject the need for more stimulus funding, Psaki responded, “That’s hard to square if they are suggesting that it is not a report that meets expectations while also saying that they don’t think we should work together to do something to help put people back to work.”

Those remarks matched House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s sentiments too. 

“The evidence is clear that the economy demands urgent action,” Pelosi said, noting that Democrats in Congress hoped to work with Republicans but they would not be “deterred or delayed.” Pelosi also seized on the data to make a specific plug for Biden’s efforts to help parents meet the challenge of finding adequate childcare.

“As we see continued evidence that women and working parents have been hit hardest in the economy, we must invest in human infrastructure with the American Families Plan,” Pelosi said.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen also pinpointed ongoing issues with childcare and erratic school schedules as one of three drivers that undercut hiring last month. The other two were continued fear of exposure to COVID at work and supply-chain bottlenecks caused by the pandemic and other factors.

Though Republicans continue to push the notion that enhanced unemployment benefits have morphed the nation into a bunch of couch potatoes, Yellen shot that down, saying, “I really don’t think the major factor is the extra unemployment [benefits].”

Yellen explained that if unemployment insurance (UI) benefits had suppressed hiring, one would expect to see lower job growth in states and sectors where the UI replacement rate was particularly high, such as in the leisure and hospitality sectors.

“In fact, what you see is the exact opposite,” Yellen said.

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo echoed Yellen’s points on MSNBC News Friday. 

“There’s really no evidence to suggest that this has anything to do with increased unemployment insurance payments,” Raimondo said. “There’s greater evidence to suggest that people are afraid to go back to work or that their kids are still out of school and they can’t get child care.”

Raimondo also stressed the need to pass the president’s jobs package to get people back to work.

“The American people are still struggling,” she said.