The July jobs report crushed both expectations and Republican hopes for bad economic news. The economy added 528,000 jobs, defying predictions of 250,000 new jobs. Unemployment fell to 3.5%—or, economist Justin Wolfers tweeted, more precisely 3.46%, which would be “THE LOWEST UNEMPLOYMENT RATE IN OVER HALF A CENTURY.”
One significant area of concern in the overall exceptionally good jobs report is that government employment remains well below pre-pandemic levels, the Economic Policy Institute’s (EPI) Elise Gould (among others) notes. Black unemployment also ticked up to 6%.
The EPI’s Heidi Shierholz also offered a warning about decelerating wage growth and Federal Reserve anti-inflation policy. “Make no mistake, we generally want positive real wage growth for workers! But decelerating wage growth means the Fed doesn’t need more interest rate increases to contain inflation,” she tweeted. “Though today’s release underscores we’re almost surely not in a recession now, the fed may have already overshot and secured a recession in coming months. Regardless, they should slow the pace of rate increases substantially and be ready to go into neutral or even cut rates.”
Those are the reactions of economists concerned about workers in the economy. On the other hand, here were the smug predictions of two Trump economic advisers (one an economist, the other a television host):
Sorry not sorry, guys! Following the release of the report, Fox News continued to struggle:
