BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Job growth in the United States outpaced analyst predictions in December by about 100,000.

The Bureau of Labor report released Friday showed the country gained about 256,000 jobs in December.

"At the aggregate level, there's some good news in this report as there has been in a lot of the BLS monthly reports during the course of 2024," Cornell  ILR Buffalo Co-Lab Research Director Russell Weaver said.

Weaver said the 4.1% unemployment rate also improved slightly from the previous month. While not as low as it was during parts of 2023, he says the rate remains comparable to pre-pandemic numbers.

"The economy as a whole, the macro economy, has experienced a substantial recovery. Our employment population ratio which is just the number of people of age who have jobs relative to the population is back up. That ticked up again so people are getting back to work," Weaver said.

The Federal Reserve began steadily cutting its benchmark interest rate over the last several months of 2024 in an effort to stablize the economy as inflation appeared to cool. Weaver said higher-than-expected job increases make it less likely that trend will continue in the short-term.

However, he points out slightly tapering wage growth indicates hikes aren't necessary either.

"It does appear the Fed is starting to achieve its objectives for lowering inflation," Weaver said.

The analyst said both the outgoing Biden administration and and incoming Trump administration will likely claim responsibility for the improving economy. While it's rarely that simple, he said both can find numbers to support their arguments.

"Any administration, the outgoing or the incoming are going to try to take credit for some of the good news here and push the bad news onto somebody else and that's just the name of this game," Weaver said.

He also pointed out aggregate numbers don't necessarily tell the entire story and factors like the price of groceries and rising cost of housing mean average people may still be feeling a financial crunch.

Weaver said the trends in upstate New York are consistent with what is happening nationally but those same crunches on things like housing and groceries are also present, effecting a lot of middle and lower class households.

He said a lot of the job growth in general in December did come from expected sources like retail but one sector that also contributed was government, which he says had been recovering very slowly since the pandemic.