Politics
What makes the new monthly jobs report less reliable than most
Expectations heading into this week showed projections of about 110,000 new jobs having been added in the United States in October. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the totals were actually quite a bit worse than that. NBC News reported:
The United States added just 12,000 jobs last month, a figure economists say was impacted by two hurricanes and a strike. Yet, even with those caveats, the report pointed to a cooling labor market. The latest payrolls figure marked the fewest monthly job gains since December 2020, during the depths of the Covid pandemic, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics saying the U.S. effectively added no new net payrolls last month.
The U.S. unemployment rate, meanwhile, was unchanged at 4.1%.
At first blush, this might look like a disaster. After years of robust job growth, seeing new hires drop to a four-year low, at least superficially, appears dreadful.
But this is one of those rare months in which the top lines of the BLS report only tell part of a larger story. The New York Times published this report before the new data reached the public:
The last couple of months have seen an unusual amount of disruption. First came the Boeing strike in September, taking some 35,000 workers off payrolls, plus another 6,000 from smaller strikes. Then came Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which spiked unemployment claims by about 35,000 in early October.
The article added that a drop-off in hiring “wouldn’t be an accurate representation of employers’ appetite to hire.”
In fact, economists and market analysts have issued plenty of warnings this week, explaining that the jobs report would paint a misleading picture. The Associated Press reported a few days ago that the report would “include some of the most distorted monthly employment figures in years.”
In other words, if all you see is the top line, you’re missing the relevant context.
As for the bigger picture, let’s also 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 U.S. economy was the greatest in the history of the planet — the economy created roughly 6.38 million jobs, spanning all of 2017, 2018 and 2019.
According to the latest tally, the U.S. economy has created roughly 16.5 million jobs since January 2021 — more than double the combined total of Trump’s first three years. (If we include the fourth year of the Republican’s term, the data looks even worse for him.)
For some additional context, consider job growth by year over the past decade, updated to reflect the latest data revisions:
2013: 2.3 million
2014: 3 million
2015: 2.7 million
2016: 2.3 million
2017: 2.1 million
2018: 2.3 million
2019: 1.98 million
2020: -9.3 million
2021: 7.2 million
2022: 4.5 million
2023: 3 million
Ten months into 2024: 1.7 million
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an BLN political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
President Donald Trump’s so-called Religious Liberty Commission, which is filled with right-wing zealotsappears to be coming apart at the seams.
Last week’s resignation of Sameerah Munshi, formerly the only Muslim woman selected as one of the commission’s advisers, underscores the religious divisions that are causing disarray for the panel and the conservative movement more broadly.
Munshi is a conservative activist who has advocated for allowing parents to opt out of lesson plans related to LGBTQ+ issues, a stance the White House has praised for its rejection of “radical gender ideology.” She said her resignation was due to two things: the commission’s expulsion of conservative activist Carrie Prejean Boller and the Trump administration’s war with Iran.
I recently wrote about how Boller’s removal, which followed a heated argument at a commission hearing over antisemitism, has fueled allegations of anti-Catholicism within the MAGA movement. Boller recently appeared on an episode of Tucker Carlson’s podcast for a chummy chat about her removal. And Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., requested last week that the House Oversight and Judiciary committees review her ouster.
In addition to that, Trump’s Religious Liberty Commission is being sued over its lack of diversity. (The White House has said the panel is intended to reflect a “diversity of faith traditions, professional backgrounds and viewpoints.”)
So Munshi’s resignation is just the latest negative publicity for the commission.
“I resign in protest of two deeply troubling developments: the official removal of Carrie Prejean Boller for her deeply held beliefs about Palestine and the federal government’s illegal war against Iran, undertaken without clear constitutional or congressional authorization,” Munshi wrote on Substack.
“Ultimately, I will have to stand before God and answer to Him for my role in this commission,” she added. “I ask His forgiveness if I have legitimized their evil or the evil of this administration in any way. I ask Him to keep my intentions pure and to guide me toward paths that bring true benefit to my community.”
Boller’s removal has also helped fuel right-wing antipathy toward the Rev. Paula White, who Boller has said was behind a “witch hunt” that led to her ouster. During their conversation, Boller and Carlson took turns bashing White, a controversial preacher of the prosperity gospel who has served as religious adviser to Trump.
Some evangelicals in the MAGA movement were apoplectic when White was chosen to lead the White House Faith Office. And now it appears the chickens have come home to roost as her involvement with Trump’s White House threatens the MAGA movement’s religious coalition.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
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