Peter Hall/Capital-Star Vice President J.D. Vance speaks during a rally at the Uline shipping materials warehouse in Lower Macungie Township on Tuesday, Dec. 16.

As a long-awaited jobs report reinforced concerns about the economy Tuesday, Vice President J.D. Vance worked to rally a group of supporters in the Lehigh Valley with claims the nation is on the brink of an economic comeback.

“It takes a little bit of time to fix something that was so fundamentally broken,” Vance said during a 30-minute speech at a shipping supply warehouse in Lehigh County. Vance repeatedly laid blame for rising costs on the previous administration.

“When I hear the Democrats talk about the affordability crisis that they created, it’s a little bit like Charles Manson criticizing violent crime. Look at the mirror, my friend, you are the cause of the problem, and Donald J. Trump’s administration is the solution,” Vance said.

The U.S. economy has struggled to recover from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought record unemployment, supply chain disruptions and production shutdowns. Global uncertainty associated with the war in Ukraine, worker shortages and stimulus spending helped continue to push up prices as the pandemic abated.

The Trump administration has been in office nearly 11 months and economists say the administration’s economic policies are not helping.

While Vance touted wage growth and foreign investment in American industry, Tuesday’s November jobs report, delayed by this fall’s 43-day government shutdown, showed stagnant growth. Experts attributed the trend to the effects of Trump’s tariffs, stubborn inflation and global instability.

According to the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. employers added 64,000 jobs in November. But, the unemployment rate increased to 4.6% last month, which is the highest it’s been in four years.

Earlier this month, the agency reported the median weekly earnings of U.S. workers increased 4.2% in the third quarter compared with a year earlier.

“That means we’re seeing the fastest private sector wage growth that we have seen in this country in many, many years, and we’re doing it by having a president and an administration that believes in you and fights for you,” Vance said.

But the report included revisions charting a loss of 105,000 jobs in October, largely reflecting the termination of tens of thousands of government workers who accepted a deferred resignation package offered as part of the administration’s effort to reduce the federal workforce. The report’s revisions also showed net losses of 108,000 jobs in September and 26,000 in August.

The event Tuesday had the same message and branding — “Lower Costs, Larger Paychecks” — as when Trump spoke a week earlier and 60 miles away at a casino in the Poconos.

During a question and answer session with reporters, Vance responded to a Vanity Fair interview published Tuesday in which Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said Vance has been “a conspiracy theorist for a decade.”

“Sometimes I am a conspiracy theorist, but I only believe in the conspiracy theories that are true,” Vance said, citing as examples that he believes it was wrong to mask young children during the COVID-19 pandemic and, without offering evidence, that Democrats and the media covered up “the fact that Joe Biden was clearly unable to do the job.”

In September 2024, Vance repeated false claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating cats and dogs and later said, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”

The rally also included remarks by two of the GOP’s top Pennsylvania candidates in the 2026 election: U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-7th District), who is running for reelection in a competitive district, and Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity, who plans to challenge popular Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro.

Garrity’s mention of Shapiro drew boos from the crowd of about 500 people. She criticized the governor, who is considered a 2028 presidential candidate, for having his sights set more “on Pennsylvania Avenue than Pennsylvania families.”

“Rather than working with the Trump-Vance administration, Josh Shapiro is fighting them,” Garrity said.

Speaking at a Harrisburg firehouse Tuesday, Shapiro responded to Vance’s remarks painting a rosy picture of the economy by saying that the vice president is out of touch with what Pennsylvanians are feeling. He said Vance was afraid to tell the truth because “it’ll upset his boss.”

“So, instead, he came to Pennsylvania and lied like his boss did when he was in northeastern Pennsylvania,” Shapiro said, noting the cost of supermarket essentials has increased during the first year of the Trump administration.

Trump’s tariffs on imports have led to retaliatory taxes that closed markets to American farmers and increased the prices of materials such as fertilizer.

“I think we can understand the president’s tariffs as a failed policy. A failed policy. All he has proven is that he knows how to raise prices on the American people. We are worse off because of Donald Trump’s and J.D. Vance’s economic policies,” Shapiro said,

Shapiro noted the vice president spoke a few miles from the Allentown Mack Trucks plant where the commercial vehicle builder laid off between 250 and 350 workers last spring, blaming economic uncertainty due to Trump’s tariffs.

Asked by a reporter how long it might take before consumers experience lower costs, Vance repeated a claim that Biden era inflation was equivalent to $3,000 taken from the pockets of every American.

“It’s going to take a little bit of time where they really feel like that money’s been put back in their pocket. That just takes a lot of time. It’s a lot of work,” Vance said.

Vance responded to a question about health care costs and the effort to extend tax credits in the Affordable Care Act. Some Republican lawmakers, especially those in battleground districts where Democrats hope to take back seats next year including Mackenzie, have pushed for inclusion of the extension in bipartisan healthcare reform bills.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said Tuesday he will not allow a floor vote this week on a bipartisan amendment that would extend the tax credits.

Vance noted the Trump administration has negotiated lower costs for some high-priced pharmaceuticals but said health care reform is up to Congress.

“We’re working with Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, to come up with a solution,” Vance said. “The Obamacare system was broken. Donald J Trump wants to fix it, but Congress has got to step up here.”

Polling released Tuesday shows Trump’s approval rating at 39%, near the lowest during his second term. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll, only 33% of respondents said they approved of Trump’s handling of the economy.

Vance said he’s not concerned that continued worry about affordability will translate to vulnerability for Republicans in the midterm election.

“I believe the American people are going to reward us, because the American people are smart,” he said. “They know Rome wasn’t built in a day. They know what Joe Biden broke is not going to get fixed in a week.”