The Jobs Report Trump Tried to BuryNegative job growth, canceled data reports, and a presidency trying to hide the math behind its own economic failure.
Before we get into it: if you’re receiving this via email, thank you. You’re already subscribed. If you’re not, now is the time. The Jobs Numbers Are Bad. The Pattern Is Worse.The jobs situation is getting quite dire. Reports from CNBC and Fox News show a stark contrast, and tells you everything about where we are right now. The United States lost 32,000 jobs in November. That is not a typo. That is not zero job growth. That is a negative number. And remember, this is during a period where the consensus estimate was plus 40,000 jobs. The miss is not a rounding error. It is a 72,000 job gap between what economists expected and what actually happened. Now, you may be wondering, where are the official jobs numbers? The answer is that Donald Trump did not like them, so he fired the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and canceled the report. Problem solved, right? Luckily for the rest of us, payroll processor ADP still publishes its own data. And the ADP data now says we lost 32,000 private sector jobs. That is all we have, because the president eliminated the actual numbers. Fox News Tries to Whisper the Bad Data CNBC covered this like normal adults. Meanwhile, Fox Business devoted barely any time to the story. Maria Bartiromo did at least acknowledge that the loss was unexpected, which is true. The expectation was plus 40,000. We got negative 32,000. The math is not subtle. What Fox did not do is explain why this matters. They did not explain that this is not an isolated figure. They did not connect it to a pattern. They did not mention that the president has dismantled the very reporting infrastructure that would tell the country what is happening. So let me do it for them. This is more than one bad number. It is a flashing economic warning light. It is evidence of a trend that aligns perfectly with the historical record of how Republican administrations perform on jobs. The Part No One on the Right Wants to Talk AboutIf you go back to World War II and look at net job creation under presidents, the contrast between the two parties is stunning. Jobs created under Democratic presidents: about 70 million More than twice as many jobs under Democrats. Put differently: Average jobs created per month under Democratic presidents: 164,000 Since the end of the Cold War, 50 million of the 51 million new jobs in the United States were created under Democratic presidents. That is not a typo. That is not a rounding choice. That is the entire story. Presidents Do Not Create Every Job, But They Influence the ClimateA president cannot wave a magic wand and produce jobs on command. Economic cycles exist. Global markets exist. Pandemics exist. But over long periods of time, policy choices matter. Presidents influence job creation through:
When you evaluate those levers over nearly 100 years, Democratic presidents encourage job creation. Republican presidents, on average, do not. So what is happening now under Trump is not shocking. It is not an anomaly. It is not bad luck. It is a continuation of a pattern. Weak job growth, or in this case job losses, are features of the Republican model, not bugs. The Only Surprise Is That Anyone Is SurprisedAt the end of the day, should we really be stunned that a president who fires statisticians for producing inconvenient math is not presiding over a healthy labor market? Should it shock anyone that a president who introduces chaos into trade, immigration, and economic policy is producing worse results? Donald Trump is not a mystery. He is not complicated. His presidency is not some unprecedented ideological experiment. It is what happens when you take the long-standing Republican approach to jobs, inject it with incompetence, and turn the data off so no one can see the final score. But the score is still there. You just have to look somewhere other than Fox News. When you eliminate the measurement tools, you do not eliminate reality. You only eliminate accountability. And the economy does not care whether the president approves of the spreadsheet. It cares whether people are working. Right now, fewer are. We’re reaching over 150 million people every month across YouTube, podcasts, Substack, and beyond. But algorithms can change. Platforms can fold. And when that happens, this newsletter is how we stay connected. If you’re not yet a paid subscriber, please consider joining. You can subscribe on our website and right here on Substack. And if you’re really on fire, consider gifting a subscription—we’ve got thousands on our waiting list ready to read, watch, and fight back. Let’s keep building. —David PS: Can’t contribute right now? No problem. You can support us for free by subscribing on YouTube, listening to our audio podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or become a free subscriber to this very Substack. Every bit counts. |
