“American manufacturing is back, folks. American manufacturing is back,” Biden said during a December 6 speech at the TSMC semiconductor plant in Phoenix, Arizona, calling it “the backbone of our economy.”

“Where is it written that America can’t lead the world once again in manufacturing? I don’t know where that’s written, and we’re proving it can.”

The Claim

In a December 22 post on Facebook, the White House wrote: “President Biden is overseeing a historic manufacturing boom in the United States—with more than 750,000 manufacturing jobs created since he took office.”

The post has generated more than 1,400 engagements and 1,100 comments.

The Facts

Biden took office as president on January 20, 2021, less than a year on from the World Health Organization’s declaration of a pandemic due to COVID-19 on March 11, 2020.

Official data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) shows there were 12,184,000 manufacturing employees in the U.S. as Biden became president that January.

Per the same dataset, there were 12,934,000 manufacturing employees as of November 2022.

So the difference between January 2021 and November 2022 is 750,000. Therefore, on the statistical point, the White House is correct.

However, on the qualitative claim of a “boom” which the 750,000 figure is used to support, some important context is absent.

It was only in June 2022 that manufacturing jobs surpassed their February 2020 level.

In June this year, the BLS data shows there were 12,794,000 such jobs versus 12,785,000 in the February two years previous (and 12,717,000 in March 2020).

The COVID pandemic and its associated restrictions dragged economic activity down sharply across the world, not least the U.S. manufacturers who were hit badly.

“After the COVID-19 pandemic began, manufacturing output fell at a 43-percent annual rate and hours worked fell at a 38-percent rate in the second quarter of 2020,” said the BLS’ The Economics Daily publication in October 2022.

“These were the largest declines since World War II. Motor vehicle production virtually ceased, and some of the plants that stayed open even pitched in to produce ventilators. Other major manufacturing industries hit hard include primary metals, fabricated metal products, machinery, food and beverage and tobacco products, and chemicals.

“No major industry was immune to the second quarter declines.”

Since the final three months of 2019—which the BLS says is “the last quarter not affected by the COVID-19 pandemic”—the manufacturing sector has grown steadily alongside the broader economic recovery.

For example, BLS data for all non-farm employees shows there were 152,504,000 in February 2020 versus 153,548,000 in November 2022, an increase of 0.7 percent.

For manufacturing employees alone, the increase across the same time period was only a little larger: 1.1 percent.

Moreover, manufacturing’s share as a portion of total U.S. GDP has barely moved between the first quarter of 2020, when it was 10.8 percent, per Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) data, versus 10.9 percent in the third quarter of 2022.

However, from a production perspective, manufacturing industry has outperformed GDP; BEA data shows a 26.9 percent increase in gross manufacturing output over this period against 19.43 percent rise in total GDP.

This difference may at least in part be explained by manufacturing’s steeper fall in output at the beginning of the pandemic, dropping 14 percent between the first and second quarters of 2020 compared to 9 percent for GDP as a whole.

The recovery from the pandemic has been steady and continuous across both the final months of the Trump administration and into the first years of the Biden Administration, as the world largely returned to normal with the mass availability of COVID vaccines.

A “boom” is, to some extent, in the eye of the beholder.

While manufacturing has certainly experienced a sustained increase in output since its nadir in the pandemic, the employment number in the sector has only recently passed its February 2020 level, and renewed economic activity largely reflects the rebound from output-depressing COVID restrictions in the U.S. and across the world.

A White House spokesperson told Newsweek: “While manufacturing usually gets left behind in economic recoveries, President Biden’s economic plan is bringing manufacturing back to America, with 750,000 manufacturing jobs created in less than two years and the fastest manufacturing recovery since the 1950s.

“Thanks to the historic investments in the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS Act, and Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we are revitalizing American manufacturing, creating even more good-paying jobs, and strengthening our supply chains. We’re building in America again, with recent investments in the industries of the future in Arizona, Michigan, North Carolina, Ohio, and countless other states.”

The Ruling

Needs Context.

The White House is correct to say that Biden has overseen the creation of 750,000 manufacturing jobs during his time as president, but the characterization of this as a “boom” overstates the economic data from the sector.

FACT CHECK BY NEWSWEEK

Updated 12/24/22, 2:35 A.M. ET: This article was updated with a statement from the White House.