This is Trump’s Jobs Market
The August jobs report is out, and the numbers keep sliding in the wrong direction. Employers added just 22,000 jobs last month. Unemployment ticked up to 4.3 percent, the highest since 2021.
Think about the slowdown. In 2024, the economy was averaging 168,000 new jobs a month. Over the past three months, that average has collapsed to just 29,000. That’s not momentum. That’s a stall.
And here’s where the pain has piled up over the past three months:
▪️ Manufacturing: – 31,000 jobs
▪️ Professional & business services: – 51,000 jobs
▪️ Federal government: – 34,000 jobs
▪️ Construction: – 10,000 jobs
▪️ Mining (including oil & gas): – 13,000 jobs
▪️ Information sector: – 15,000 jobs
▪️ Financial activities: flat, no net gains
Drill down close: without health care and social assistance, the economy would have shed more than 140,000 jobs since spring.
The story is bigger than one bad month. The very industries that were supposed to thrive under Trump’s second term – construction, manufacturing, mining – are the ones shrinking. Tariffs have pushed costs up instead of pulling jobs back. Restructuring the federal government has meant cuts and chaos, uncertainty and stagnation – not stability. Deficit-driving tax and budget changes have left little room for investment in real growth.
The White House keeps insisting the economy is “booming.” But the reality is plain: the sectors Trump promised to revive are shrinking, and working Americans are feeling the squeeze first.
