Ahead of this morning’s jobs report, most projections pointed to growth in April of roughly 190,000 jobs. Fortunately, the results were even better than that.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning that the economy added 263,000 jobs last month, while the unemployment rate dipped lower to 3.6%. That is, for the record, the lowest the jobless rate has been in 50 years.
The revisions from the previous two months were modest — February was revised up a little, March was revised down a little — with a total of 16,000 previously unreported jobs.
As for the political implications, Donald Trump has now been in office for 27 full months — February 2017 through April 2019 — and in that time, the economy has created 5.4 million jobs. In the 27 full months preceding Trump’s presidency — November 2014 to January 2017 — the economy created 5.85 million jobs.
The White House has not yet offered an explanation for why job growth has slowed since Trump took office. Above you’ll find the chart I run every month, showing monthly changes in total jobs since the start of the Great Recession. The image makes a distinction: red columns point to monthly changes under the Bush and Trump administrations, while blue columns point to monthly job changes under the Obama administration. Postscript: One thing to keep an eye on in the coming months is the effect Census Bureau hiring will have on jobs reports.
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." Recommended
