"The first two months of our administration has seen more new jobs created than in the first two months in any administration in history", Biden told a news conference. "But we still have a long way to go to get our economy back on track after the worst economic and job crisis in nearly a century".
Earlier on Friday, the Labor Department announced that the US employment expanded by 916,000 in March, adding to the 468,000 jobs created in February - the first month of the Biden administration.
Nevertheless, Biden said there were 8.4 million fewer jobs now than in March 2020, before the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
Biden also said the existing deficit could be overcome faster with the 19 million new jobs forecast from his so-called American Jobs Plan, which will run off a $2.3 trillion, eight-year infrastructure development programme he proposed on Wednesday.
"Nearly 90 percent of the infrastructure jobs created under the American Jobs Plan can be filled by people who don't have a college degree and 75 percent of those good-paying jobs don't need an associate's degree", Biden said. "It's a blue-collar blueprint for increasing opportunities for people who've helped build the country and have been ignored or neglected for much too long by our government."
The US president downplayed any long-term economic harm from the jobs plan which he proposed to pay for by raising the corporate tax to 28 percent from the current 21 percent and levying more taxes on families earning $400,000 and above.
"It's a once-in-a-generation investment in our economic future, a chance to win the future, paid for by asking big corporations, many of which do not pay any taxes at all, just to begin to pay their fair share", Biden said. "And I won't raise a penny of tax in a family making less than $400,000 a year."
The US economy shrank 3.5 percent in 2020, after a 2.2 percent growth in 2019, data shows. The Federal Reserve has forecast 2021 growth at 6.5 percent.
