Expectations heading into this week showed projections of about 125,000 new jobs having been added in the United States in May. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the totals easily exceeded expectations. NBC News reported:
The United States added 139,000 jobs in May, more than expected but pointing to a labor market that continues to slow. The employment data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics exceeded forecasts for about 120,000 payroll gains but marked a decline from the revised 147,000 jobs added in April. The unemployment rate held steady at 4.2%, remaining near historic lows.
Earlier this week, Donald Trump published a one-sentence statement to his social media platform, in which the president boasted, “Because of Tariffs, our Economy is BOOMING!”
The data suggests otherwise. There’s nothing especially wrong with the preliminary topline totals from May — 139,000 jobs is a mediocre number but hardly a disaster — though there are other signs of trouble. For example, the revised jobs totals from March and April were sharply lower, pointing to a job market that appears to be cooling.
Indeed, consider the broader context: Over the first five months of 2025, the latest data suggest the economy has added 619,000 jobs. Over the first five months of 2024 — when Trump said the economy was terrible — the total was nearly 898,000 jobs. Over the first five months of 2023, the U.S. economy added nearly 1.3 million jobs.
If we exclude 2020, when the pandemic wreaked havoc on the economy, the first five months of this year are the worst since the Great Recession. A variety of adjectives come to mind, but “BOOMING” isn’t one of them.
NBC News’ report added, “Even as the economy continued to add jobs at a relatively steady clip last month, the report showed other signs of a weakening labor market. The ratio of employed workers to the total population fell to 59.7%, the lowest rate since the pandemic. And an alternative measure of unemployment that includes ‘discouraged’ workers, or those who have stopped looking for work, returned to a post-pandemic high of 4.5%.” In recent weeks, there’s been a lot of discussion in economic and finance circles about when and whether the White House tariffs and trade policies would start to affect the domestic job market. Real trouble hasn’t yet arrived — it’s tough to complain too much about a 4.2% unemployment rate — but concerned chatter is going to be noticeably louder in response to this new data. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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