As I write this, the Democratic press releases are still being edited, but the collective scream soon to come is perfectly predictable. Already, Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu said on BlueSky that “Republicans are messing up the economy,” based on private jobs data that came out Thursday.
You can see why Democrats might make that argument. It seems the latest numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show a meager job gain in August of 22,000, with technical revisions to recent months data in the negatives by 21,000. Even without that revision, that’s a job growth rate of a tenth what Joe Biden achieved in good months during his term.
But the screams, and the rocketing stock market hoping for a rate cut based on the numbers, miss the fact that this dismal employment picture might be a sign that Donald Trump’s policies are working as intended.
