Trump's job pledges fade as amid weak hiring, rising prices
WASHINGTON
The U.S. job market has gone from healthy to lethargic during President Donald Trump’s first seven months back in the White House, as hiring has collapsed and inflation has started to climb once again as his tariffs take hold.
The jobs report on Sept. 5 showed employers added a mere 22,000 jobs in August, as the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3 percent. Factories and construction firms shed workers. Revisions showed the economy lost 13,000 jobs in June, the first monthly losses since December 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The new data exposed the widening gap between the booming economy Trump promised and the more anemic reality of what he’s managed to deliver so far. The White House prides itself on operating at a breakneck speed, but it’s now asking the American people for patience, with Trump saying better job numbers might be a year away.
“We’re going to win like you’ve never seen,” Trump said on Sept. 5 “Wait until these factories start to open up that are being built all over the country, you’re going to see things happen in this country that nobody expects.”
The plea for patience has done little to comfort Americans, as economic issues that had been a strength for Trump for a decade have evolved into a persistent weakness. Approval of Trump’s economic leadership hit 56 percent in early 2020 during his first term, but that figure was 38 percent in July of this year, according to polling by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
Trump maintained on Sept. 5 that the economy would be adding jobs if Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had slashed benchmark interest rates, even though doing so to the degree that Trump wants could ignite higher inflation.
Investors expect a rate cut by the Fed at its next meeting in September, although that’s partially because of weakening job numbers.
By many measures, Trump has dug himself into a hole on the economy as its performance has yet to come anywhere close to his hype.
Trump in 2024 suggested that deporting immigrants in the country illegally would protect “Black jobs.” But the Black unemployment rate has climbed to 7.5 percent, the highest since October 2021, as the Trump administration has engaged in aggressive crackdowns on immigration.
At his April tariffs announcement, Trump said, “Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country and you see it happening already.” Since April, manufacturers have cut 42,000 jobs and builders have downsized by 8,000.
At 2024 rallies, Trump promised to “end” inflation on “day one” and halve electricity prices within 12 months. Consumer prices have climbed from a 2.3 percent annual increase in April to 2.7 percent in July. Electricity costs are up 4.6 percent so far this year.
The Trump White House maintains that the economy is on the cusp of breakout growth, with its new import taxes poised to raise hundreds of billions of dollars annually if they can withstand court challenges.
