Expectations heading into this morning showed projections of about 170,000 new jobs having been added in the United States in December. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job market managed to do even better than that. CNBC reported:
The U.S. labor market closed out 2023 in strong shape as the pace of hiring was even more powerful than expected, the Labor Department reported Friday. … Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been looking for payrolls to increase 170,000 and the unemployment rate to nudge higher to 3.8%.
What’s more, while December’s jobs report showed employers adding 216,000 positions last month, we also learned that wage growth continued to outpace inflation, and the unemployment rate remained at 3.7%. In fact, the jobless rate has been below 4% for 23 consecutive months — a streak unseen in the United States since the 1960s.
In terms of overall job growth, with revisions from October and November factored in, we now know roughly 2.7 million jobs were created last year.
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 United States’ economy was the greatest in the history of the planet — the economy created roughly 6.35 million jobs, spanning all of 2017, 2018 and 2019.
According to the latest tally, the U.S. economy has created roughly 14.7 million jobs since January 2021 — more than double the combined total of Trump’s first three years.
In recent months, Republicans have responded to developments like these by pretending not to notice them. No one should be surprised if GOP officials keep the trend going today.
For some additional context, consider job growth by year over the past decade:
2013: 2.3 million
2014: 3 million
2015: 2.7 million
2016: 2.3 million
2017: 2.1 million
2018: 2.3 million 2019: 2 million 2020: -9.3 million 2021: 7.3 million 2022: 4.8 million 2023: 2.7 million 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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