Biden says 'it turns out capitalism is alive and very well'

• President Joe Biden made a speech about economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic on Monday.

• In the speech at the White House, he said capitalism is "alive and very well."

• "We're making serious progress to ensure that it works the way it's supposed to work," he added.

• See more stories on Insider's business page.

President Joe Biden said that "capitalism is alive and very well" in a speech about economic recovery amid the COVID-19 pandemic at the White House on Monday.

"It turns out capitalism is alive and very well," he said. "We're making serious progress to ensure that it works the way it's supposed to work for the good of the American people."

Since Biden took office, economic recovery from the pandemic has been a prime focus of his agenda, and June's latest jobs numbers only served to help his case. 850,000 payrolls were added last month, and since that data was announced, Biden touted it as proof that economic growth is well underway and will continue with his infrastructure plan.

"For all those predictions of doom and gloom six months in, here's where things stand," Biden said in his speech. "Record growth, record job creation, workers getting hard-earned breaks."

"We've brought our economy back from the brink, and we designed our strategy to provide for not only a temporary boost, but to lay the foundation for a long-term boom that brings everybody along," he added.

As Biden mentioned, this economic recovery can be attributed, in part, to higher wages for workers. The leisure and hospitality sector added 343,000 payrolls, and wages in those industries shot up 7.1% from a year ago.

Following the April jobs report that fell significantly below expectations, Insider reported that one of the possible reasons workers weren't rushing back to work, despite a high number of job openings, was that they were holding out for higher wages, leading major companies like Costco and Target to raise their minimum wages to at least $15 an hour, putting pressure on other employers to follow suit.

And after the June jobs report, Biden credited his American Rescue Plan during a press briefing as a force behind the country's economic recovery, saying that his actions so far seem "to be working a little bit."

"More jobs, better wages - that's a good combination," Biden said during the briefing. "Put simply: Our economy is on the move, and we have COVID-19 on the run."

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