Those looking for good news in the latest job numbers will be hard pressed to find anything. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest data, the U.S. economy actually lost 23,000 jobs in July, and while the unemployment rate inched lower to 4.1%, even this was discouraging: The “improved” rate was the result of the labor force participation rate dropping, as opposed to additional hiring.
The fact that job growth turned negative was itself striking, especially since this was the sixth time this has happened since Donald Trump returned to the White House. (During Joe Biden’s presidency and Barack Obama’s second term, the total number of months in which the economy lost jobs was zero.)
All told, the U.S. economy has added 542,000 jobs over Trump’s 19-month second term, a dramatic decline from the nearly 2.7 million jobs that were added over the previous 19 months. Excluding the 2020 pandemic, the first year of Trump’s second term was the worst year for job creation since the Great Recession, and his year is on track to the second worst year for job creation since the Great Recession.
With this in mind, the White House basically has three options. It can (a) try to make excuses and hope the public buys it; (b) ask Americans for patience, claiming that conditions will eventually improve; or (c) pitch an absurd alternate reality and hope for the best.
Take a wild guess which approach Team Trump prefers.
On Friday, shortly after the job numbers were released, Kevin Hassett, the director of the National Economic Council and the top economist in the White House, told Fox News that if we exclude the part of the economy that lost jobs, “you actually had a number that was about plus 100,000.”
In related news, if you exclude the parts of my head where my hair has fallen out, I actually have a full head of hair.
Two days later, Hassett spoke to CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union,” where he had the audacity to argue, “The bottom line is that, if you look at the overall economy, then things are really, really booming.”
To the extent that reality still has any meaning, the United States is current dealing with weak and disappointing growth, an anemic job market, and wages that are failing to keep up with inflation. All of the available public opinion research shows that the vast majority of Americans are thorough dissatisfied with the state of the economy.
But that the White House chooses to see “booming” conditions anyway — effectively telling Americans, “Don’t believe your wallets or the data coming out of the Trump administration. Everything’s actually great.”
Tapper reminded Hassett that, over the last year and a half of Biden’s term, the economy added over 2 million jobs, nearly quadruple the total from Trump’s second term, adding, “Are you really arguing that your numbers are better than that?”
The White House economist replied, “Well, I disagree with your number. We will have to follow up on email, but I just looked at the latest number. It was that job creation under President Trump since January 20 is about 880,000 jobs.”
As it turns out, I also just looked at the latest number — the 880,000 figure is simply fiction, according to the Trump administration’s own data — and that can’t be fixed in an email.
It’s worth emphasizing that Hassett wasn’t caught off guard in some hallway ambush. He was invited onto CNN, knowing exactly what kind of questions he’d face from Tapper, and he had plenty of time prepare his best possible pitch in defense of the Trump-era economy. He apparently couldn’t think of anything.
As for Hassett’s boss, the president told Fox News last week that Americans “have the greatest economy maybe in the history of the world.” A few days later, the Republican sat down with Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman and added, “A lot of people are saying I’m one of the greatest presidents ever. … You know, when I see polls on the economy, I should have 150%, not 100%, because we have the greatest, this is the golden age of America.”
For now, let’s not dwell on the fact that is guy clearly doesn’t understand how percentages work. Instead, let’s focus on the fact that Trump seems to understand that Americans aren’t happy with the economic status quo, but he’s nevertheless eager to tell them how wrong they are about their own frustrations, anxieties, and economic conditions.
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