Hours after a disappointing job report U.S. President Joe Biden defended the $1.9 trillion American rescue plan, he said that new data demonstrated the need for legislation and that the economy needed more time to recover.

In his remarks, Biden added, "When we took office, we knew that we faced an epidemic that happened once a century, an economic crisis that happened once a generation, and we knew that this would not be a quick enemy, but a marathon."

About the Corona virus relief package, which passed earlier this year, Biden said it was "designed to help us over the course of a year, not 60 days," adding that "we never thought everything would be okay after the first 60 days."

Biden's comments come after job data, released earlier, revealed that the U.S. economy added only 266,000 jobs during April, far below economists' expectations, while unemployment rose to 6.1 percent.

The figures prompted Republicans to quickly criticize Biden's agenda, arguing that it proved that his large recovery package was too excessive and motivated people not to work.

"Today's job report is disappointing, just like President Biden's plan to burden families with more taxes and more debt," the Republican minority leader wrote on Twitter.

McCarthy added that "while Democrats are trapping people in a circle of fear and paying them not to work, obviously the best thing to do is to end crisis-era politics and get Americans back to work."

But Biden said the figures showed that the recovery package was necessary given the fragility of the American economy, and that aspects of the legislation had not yet been felt, noting that assistance to restaurants, state and local governments would begin this month.

Biden also spoke about his $2.3 trillion infrastructure and climate plan, which had been unveiled earlier, saying that passing it would create new jobs to boost the economy in the future.

The President of the United States rejected the idea that the enhanced unemployment benefits included in the rescue package had reduced the return of certain groups to work, and when asked by a reporter: "No, nothing is measurable."