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Expectations heading into this morning showed projections of about 185,000 new jobs having been added in the United States in July. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job market didn’t fare quite that well. CNBC reported:
Job growth in the U.S. slowed much more than expected during July and the unemployment rate ticked higher, the Labor Department reported Friday. Nonfarm payrolls grew by just 114,000 for the month, down from the downwardly revised 179,000 in June and below the Dow Jones estimate for 185,000. The unemployment rate edged higher to 4.3%, its highest since October 2021.
The jump in the unemployment rate was especially notable: In July 2023, the rate was 3.5%, and 12 months later, it’s 4.3%. It’s why the public is about to hear a lot about the “Sahm Rule.”
But as the public digests the latest figures, it’s worth emphasizing that the Federal Reserve, hoping to combat inflation, kept interest rates high, knowing it would cool the job market. The recent slowdown, in other words, isn’t an accident; it’s a deliberate outcome of the Fed’s strategy.
It’s also why the obvious reaction to today’s jobs report will be renewed pressure on the Federal Reserve for a meaningful rate cut in September — at the latest.
As for the politics, let’s 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 over 16.2 million jobs since January 2021 — more than double the combined total of Trump’s first three years.
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
Seven months into 2024: 1.4 million
This post updates our related earlier coverage.