Nonfarm payrolls added 223,000 jobs in December, bringing the unemployment rate to 3.468 percent, the lowest level since 1969 (albeit by a very slim margin, the third decimal point).One of the biggest demonstrations took place throughout the entire University of California system and saw tens of thousands of academic workers walk out to demand pay increases.Both the employment gains and the falling gas prices are huge wins for Biden, who has been under fire since he took office for sky-high inflation and unemployment, at first due to Covid-19 and then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.The U.S. central bank is eager to achieve a so-called soft landing, or a decrease in inflation without tipping the economy into a recession.The fact that the labor market has remained strong overall has caused concerns that the economy has not slowed sufficiently to avoid a downturn, but Dean Baker, the senior economist at the Center for Economic Policy and Research, put the chances of a recession at “less than 50 percent.”“I think the overall picture suggests the economy can keep growing at a healthy pace,” he said of the December jobs report, but that will depend on the Fed maintaining a slower pace with rate hikes."