Expectations heading into this week showed projections of about 161,000 new jobs having been added in the United States in August. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job market didn’t fare quite that well. NBC News reported:
The U.S. economy added 142,000 jobs in August and the unemployment rate ticked down slightly to 4.2%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday, fresh data that does little to assuage concerns about a slowdown in an otherwise solid labor market.
While it’s true that the overall jobs total fell short of expectations, all things considered, this isn’t a bad report. Not only were August’s job totals up from June and July, but the unemployment rate improved, and wage growth continued to outpace inflation.
That said, there’s no denying that the job market has cooled compared to last year’s amazing numbers — the Federal Reserve raised interest rates, and it had the intended effect — and the Fed will almost certainly respond to the developments by lowering rates later this month.
As The Washington Post’s Heather Long summarized, “There are clear warning signs, but a ‘soft landing’ is still very possible.”
As for the politics, let’s circle back to previous coverage to put the data in perspective. Over the course of the first three years of Donald Trump’s presidency — when the Republican said the U.S. economy was the greatest in the history of the planet — the economy created roughly 6.38 million jobs, spanning all of 2017, 2018 and 2019.
According to the latest tally, the U.S. economy has created over 16.3 million jobs since January 2021 — more than double the combined total of Trump’s first three years.
For some additional context, consider job growth by year over the past decade, updated to reflect the latest data revisions:
2013: 2.3 million
2014: 3 million
2015: 2.7 million
2016: 2.3 million
2017: 2.1 million
2018: 2.3 million
2019: 1.98 million
2020: -9.3 million
2021: 7.2 million
2022: 4.5 million
2023: 3 million
Eight months into 2024: 1.5 million
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
