Expectations heading into this week showed projections of about 59,000 new jobs being created in the United States in March. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the totals exceeded those expectations. CNBC reported:
Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 178,000 during the month, a reversal from the 133,000 decline in February and better than the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 59,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. February’s number was revised down by 41,000 while January was revised up by 34,000 to 160,000, putting the three-month average around 68,000.
With job creation higher, the unemployment rate edged lower to 4.3%.
It’s worth emphasizing for context that a major nursing strike in California and Hawaii depressed payrolls in February by tens of thousands of jobs, and now that those labor disputes have been resolved, those now count as new jobs in March. Still, 178,000 is a good overall number.
Indeed, though the data will be revised in the coming months, the preliminary totals suggest that March showed the best job growth of Trump’s second term, though the 178,000 jobs falls short of the 237,000 jobs created in December 2024 — the last full month of Joe Biden’s term.
All told, the U.S. economy has added 321,000 jobs over Donald Trump’s 15-month second term. Over the previous 15 months, the economy added roughly 1.9 million jobs.
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While March’s totals are certainly a step in the right direction, the overall picture still reflects a stunning reversal, which the Republican administration has made no credible effort to explain or justify.
To contextualize the data, MS NOW put together this chart showing month-to-month totals since the 2020 election. The blue columns point to Biden’s presidency, while the red columns point to Trump’s.
It remains to be seen whether the president responds to the trend by firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (again).
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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