Some Americans have grown skeptical of the monthly jobs report numbers from the Biden-Harris administration, particularly after there have been several significant downward revisions that revealed there were far fewer jobs than had been initially reported.

President Joe Biden bristled with anger on Friday when questioned about Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) suggesting the better-than-expected September jobs report was "fake" and intended to benefit his administration politically, according to The Washington Post.

Yet, Biden's insistence that the jobs numbers are "real," and the media's reflexive rush to defend them from Republican critiques, doesn't change the fact that Rubio was correct to point out that, more often than not, the monthly job reports typically tend to be not quite as stellar as initial reports indicated after later revisions are released.

Rubio skeptical of latest jobs report numbers

On Friday, CNBC reported that according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, unemployment ticked down slightly to 4.1% while around 254,000 jobs were added to the economy -- far more than the 150,000 that had been predicted for the month of September.

That seemingly good news followed relatively modest upward revisions to the jobs reports for July and August -- an additional 55,000 jobs in July that brought the total up to 144,000, and an extra 17,000 in August for a revised total of 159,000.

Yet, in response to the September jobs report, Sen. Rubio posted on X, "Another fake jobs report out from Biden-Harris government today."

"16 of the last 17 reports have been significantly revised downwards after media helps them with their fake headlines," the Florida senator added. "But all the fake numbers in the world aren’t going to fool people dealing with the Biden-Harris economic disaster every day."

Biden defends jobs report numbers as "real" and "sincere"

Later on Friday afternoon, President Biden made a rare appearance in the White House briefing room and delivered remarks about the positive jobs report and other news before taking some questions from reporters, the first of which pertained to Sen. Rubio's claim about "fake" numbers. The reporter asked, "What do you make of that? And how worried are you that many Americans are hearing that the jobs numbers aren’t real?"

"Look, I’m going to be very careful here," Biden replied. "If you notice anything the MAGA Republicans don’t like, they call 'fake.' Anything. The job numbers are what the job numbers are. They’re real. They’re sincere. They’re -- what we are."

"But -- and, by the way, just look at how the EU talks about us, how they’d like to have an economy like ours. Let’s talk about the rest of the world looks at us and what we’re doing," he added. "So, I -- well, I don’t want to get going."

Major downward revision of 2023's numbers in August

The Post's report defended President Biden and the jobs report and strongly implied that Sen. Rubio was wrong and had no basis to question the validity of the monthly reported numbers -- even as the outlet acknowledged that there have been some major downward revisions of previously reported numbers.

Indeed, it was less than two months ago in late August that CNN, among other media outlets, reported that the BLS had issued a major downward revision of the monthly jobs numbers through March and revealed that there had actually been 818,000 fewer jobs created than had been initially reported.

That was the biggest downward shift of the reported numbers since the Great Recession in 2009, and though 2023 had seen positive job growth overall, it wasn't nearly as "red hot" as the initial media reports and the Biden-Harris administration led the American people to believe.

Biden can get mad if he wants, but Rubio and every other American have every right to express skepticism about the administration's claims -- about jobs reports or anything else -- in light of the administration's undeniable track record of incredible dishonesty and gaslighting on just about every major and minor issue.