Good morning. It's Sunday, January the 7th. Happy Orthodox Christmas to those of you who celebrate.

I'm Ali Velshi, and if you've paid any attention to the U.S. Jobs Report at any point over the last three years is a good chance you've heard the phrase better than expected.

You probably heard it again over the past few days following the latest jobs report for December.

216,000 net new jobs were created, much better than expected per CNBC.

Back in the old days, we'd say that 150,000 or more jobs created in one month was good. There are now

1.42 open positions for every job seeker in America. While every available job is not matched

to every available job seeker, mathematically America has more jobs than it has available workers.

That's just a fact.

December's 216,000 is not an anomaly either. That's largely been the trend of the Biden presidency since he entered office in 2021. You can easily find similar headlines about better than

expected numbers for June 2021, January 2020, June 2022, September 2023, for example. This has been one of the

top achievements of the Biden presidency. It shows that he's been able to sustain a long-term economy

throughout his first three years in office. Unfortunately for him, the optimism that outside

experts have about the economy is not broadly shared by

the general public, and it's entirely and seemingly willfully ignored by Republican voters.

An NBC poll from November found that only 39%, 38% of registered voters approved of Biden's

handling the economy compared to 59% who disapproved. In a separate poll of registered voters approved of Biden's handling the economy compared to 59% who disapproved.

In a separate poll of registered voters in six battleground states by the New York Times

and Sienna College, the majority of respondents, 59% said they trust Donald Trump to do a better

job with the economy than they trust Biden. The disconnect between the public's perception of the

health of the economy versus how the economy is actually performing is deeply, deeply troubling,

regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, because it's a sign of how well

propaganda works. It doesn't help that Biden's running against Trump, who will take every opportunity

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