The Patriot Post® · Economy Off to Good Start Under Trump

This morning, the government published fresh jobs figures showing that 227,000 jobs were added to the economy in January. Meanwhile, the unemployed rate rose from 4.7% to 4.8%, which, oddly enough, is actually good news. Why? “[B]ecause a hefty rise in employment was offset by an even bigger increase in the number of Americans working and looking for jobs,” explains USA Today. In layman’s terms, this means the pool of unemployed Americans who are actively searching for jobs is on the rise, which could signal growing confidence.

As far as who deserves the credit — Donald Trump or Barack Obama — the American Enterprise Institute’s James Pethokoukis says, “Technically, this would seem to be Barack Obama’s final job report. As former Bush Treasury and White House official Tony Fatto notes on Twitter: ‘Because the BLS survey period was Jan 8-14, this is best referenced as the final Obama jobs report rather than the 1st Trump print.’” On the flip side, Pethokoukis adds, “I imagine the pro-Trump counterargument would be that businesses, like investors, are forward-looking and have been anticipating a Trump boom so they’ve stepped up hiring in anticipation.”

The bottom line? It’ll be interesting to see February’s jobs report, which, unlike this latest report, will entail a full month’s worth of data under a new administration. It’s basically impossible to draw any conclusions yet, but more samples will give us a better clue. In any case, let’s hope today’s report means unemployed Americans finally feel they can put Obama’s failed economic policies behind them. On a final note, USA Today adds, “Businesses added 237,000 jobs, driven by retail, construction and financial services.” Meanwhile, “Federal, state and local governments lost 10,000.” Those are the jobs our economy needs fewer of!