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brendan boyle
'Devastating' New Jobs Report Shows Labor Market 'Cracking' Under Trump
"The theory of Trumponomics is failing," said one economist.
Sep 05, 2025
A federal jobs report released on Friday showed the US economy added a mere 22,000 jobs in August in yet another signal of weakness in the US labor market.
Economists had projected the economy would produce 75,000 jobs on the month, which means that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) numbers released on Friday were well below the consensus estimate.
What's more, the total number of jobs created in July and June were once again revised downward, and the economy as a whole has added an average of fewer than 30,000 jobs over the last three months.
Heather Long, the chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, put the bad jobs report in stark terms.
"The labor market is going from frozen to cracking," she said, and then pointed to net job losses in industries including mining, construction, and manufacturing that show significant stress in the blue-collar economy. In fact, the majority of job growth came from the healthcare industry over the last month.
"The US job market is almost entirely dependent on healthcare," she observed. "That's not healthy for the economy."
Justin Wolfers, an economist at the University of Michigan, also said that the new numbers showed a continued deterioration in both the US labor market and the economy as a whole.
"I'm worried," he said. "The economy was in a good place in late 2024. That's no longer true. And the trajectory is, at a minimum, concerning. That's millions of people's lives, and millions of stories of pain."
Wolfers also zeroed in on the fact that manufacturing employment has been contracting for several months, despite US President Donald Trump's pledges to lead a manufacturing revitalization.
"But the Administration has made dramatic policy shift to boost manufacturing, and it just ain't working," he said. "Manufacturing employment fell [by 12,000 jobs], and is down [78,000 jobs] over the year."
Former BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer, whom Trump fired last month after he baselessly accused her of concocting negative job numbers to harm him politically, argued on Bluesky that the new report's downward revisions of previous monthly estimates are indicative of a labor market that is very quickly cooling.
"The larger-than-usual downward revision last month was in large part driven by a negative skew in the job growth distribution among late reporting firms," she said. "That's unusual, but it's happened before when the pace of job growth slows rapidly. This print is more evidence that was the case."
Mike Konczal, senior director of policy and research at the Economic Security Project and former member of President Joe Biden's National Economic Council, argued the new jobs report demonstrates that "the theory of Trumponomics is failing."
"The first theory of Trumponomics was that tariffs would build up manufacturing work and federal workforce cuts would free up workers for them," he explained. "That's failed. Manufacturing lost jobs almost as fast as the federal workforce (-12 vs. -15K)."
Konczal then showed how Trump's tariffs have hurt his stated goal of bringing back well-paying jobs for blue-collar men, as industries that produce such jobs have also been harmed by his tariffs on foreign goods and materials.
He also pointed out that Trump advisers claimed that mass deportations of undocumented immigrants would create new job openings that native-born workers would rush in to fill.
"But, you guessed it, that's also failing," he said. "Amidst the broader weakening, the native-born unemployment rate is at the highest levels since the pandemic."
Elise Gould, the director of health policy research at the Economic Policy Institute, similarly noted that "there have... been sustained losses over recent months in manufacturing, construction, and mining," in recent months, which she said was "an indication that Trump's blue-collar renaissance is clearly not happening."
Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at the progressive advocacy organization Groundwork Collaborative, called the jobs report "devastating," while laying the blame at the feet of Trump.
"Trump's promises to working families have fallen flat," he said. "The unemployment rate is the highest in nearly four years, the economy has lost nearly 40,000 manufacturing jobs this year alone, and millions of workers are unable to find full-time employment. Families are getting fewer chances to secure the American dream in Trump's economy."
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) reacted to the jobs report by issuing a scathing rebuke to Trump and his management of the economy.
"Donald Trump inherited an economy built on years of steady job growth," he said. "In just seven months, he's managed to screw it up—just like he's screwed up everything else in his life. Now, working families are getting squeezed from every direction: higher prices, Republicans' Big Ugly Law ripping health care away from millions, and a job market that's slowing down."
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CBO Confirms Trump Budget Law Will Trigger Over $500 Billion in Automatic Medicare Cuts
"Republicans knew their tax breaks for billionaires would force over half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts—and they did it anyway," said Rep. Brendan Boyle.
Aug 15, 2025
A report released on Friday confirmed what many Democratic lawmakers have long been warning about: Republicans' massive budget law will trigger significant cuts to Medicare.
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its analysis of the GOP's budget package and acknowledged that it would be required to issue a sequestration, which is essentially a cancellation of budgetary resources.
The sequestration is required under the rules set out by the Statutory Pay‑As‑You‑Go Act of 2010 that requires spending cuts that are equal to a piece of legislation's negative impact on the budget deficit.
The only way to avoid these cuts, said the CBO, would be for Congress to pass "subsequent legislation that would offset the deficit increase, waive the recordation of the bill's effects on the scorecard, or otherwise mitigate or eliminate the statutory requirements."
The CBO said that these cuts could take as much as $45 billion out of Medicare for fiscal year 2026. What's more, the amount cut from Medicare would increase in every subsequent year, resulting in total cuts of as much as $536 billion between 2026 and 2034.
Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Penn.), the ranking member of the House Budget Committee, excoriated his Republican colleagues for passing a budget that will result in cuts to Medicare, a program that US President Donald Trump repeatedly pledged not to touch during the 2024 presidential campaign.
"For months now, I have been sounding the alarm on the devastating Medicare cuts caused by Trump's Big Ugly Law," he said. "Republicans knew their tax breaks for billionaires would force over half a trillion dollars in Medicare cuts—and they did it anyway. American families simply cannot afford Donald Trump's attacks on Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare."
The Republicans' budget package also took a major ax to Medicaid, as it cut spending on the program by an estimated $1 trillion over the next decade. The CBO has already projected that millions of people will lose coverage.
Medicaid cuts are already having a negative impact. Several states have said that they are slashing rates paid to medical providers, which experts have said could result in several hospitals in these states going bankrupt given that many of them were in bad financial shape even before the GOP's budget law passed last month.
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Inflation Spike Shows Trump Tariffs—as Predicted—Have 'Made the Problem Worse'
"Trump was handed a stable economy," said one economist. "I expected them to screw up either the labor market, prices, or growth. I didn't expect them to fumble all three."
Aug 12, 2025
Belying U.S. President Donald Trump's promise to "end inflation"—and his subsequent claim that he's "solved" it—new federal economic data released Tuesday showed increased inflation in July resulted from businesses in some sectors are passing the costs of Trump's tariffs on to consumers.
The consumer price index (CPI) figures, released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), measure the cost of staple goods across the economy and offer a detailed look at inflationary impacts in a variety of areas. The overall CPI rose 2.7% in July from year-ago levels, a similar increase from June. So-called "core" inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food, rose 3.1% in July, the highest level in five months.
While White House Council of Economic Advisers Stephen Miran claimed that July's CPI shows that there is "no evidence whatsoever" that Trump's trade war has spurred price increases, economic experts have repeatedly predicted the cost of tariffs would ultimately be passed to consumers.
Natalie Baker, director of economic analysis at the Center for American Progress, a public policy research and advocacy group, said in a statement that "the consistent upward trend in inflation is the latest sign that President Trump's reckless trade war and the resulting economic uncertainty are wreaking havoc on family budgets and the American economy."
"Combined with the lackluster jobs report and recent [gross domestic product] numbers, this is a clear warning sign that the president's policies are raising prices and squeezing consumers," Baker adeed. "It's a chilling reminder that the risk of stagflation is growing by the day."
The Democratic National Committee weighed in on the numbers, with communications director Rosemary Boeglin saying that "Donald Trump is steering the economy off a cliff, as core inflation rises to over 3%."
"Working families are already cutting back on basic necessities as Trump's billionaire-first agenda makes life more expensive," Boeglin continued. "While his budget explodes the deficit and enables the largest wealth transfer in history from the working and middle classes to the ultrawealthy, Trump's erratic trade war continues to accelerate inflation and jack up prices."
"While Trump profits off the presidency, hardworking Americans are struggling to get by with no end in sight," she added.
House Budget Committee Ranking Member Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) said in a statement: "Donald Trump was elected to bring down costs. Instead, he's made the problem worse."
"Trump's Big Ugly Law gives away trillions to billionaires, paid for by cutting healthcare for millions of Americans," Boyle added. "The American people simply can't afford the policies of Donald Trump and the GOP."
Mike Konczal—an economic adviser to former President Joe Biden who is now the senior director of policy and research at the progressive nonprofit Economic Security Project—called July's CPI "overall worse than I expected, with the background of government disinvestment and deportations weakening potential growth."
"Trump was handed a stable economy," Konzcal added. "I expected them to screw up either the labor market, prices, or growth. I didn't expect them to fumble all three."
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