{"id":387,"date":"2017-03-10T14:09:29","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T19:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/?p=387"},"modified":"2017-03-10T14:09:29","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T19:09:29","slug":"trump-is-not-responsible-for-strong-job-numbers-yet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/387","title":{"rendered":"Trump Is Not Responsible For Strong Job Numbers, Yet…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bloomberg<\/a> – President Donald Trump used the first federal jobs report of his presidency to promote a narrative of an invigorated economy that may strengthen his political position as begins the drive to win passage of legislative priorities including an Obamacare replacement and a tax overhaul.<\/p>\n

\u201cGREAT AGAIN: +235,000,\u201d Trump posted on his Twitter account in a retweet of a Drudge Report headline<\/span><\/u><\/a> on Friday minutes after the Bureau of Labor Statistics released payrolls data for February showing the U.S. added a net 235,000 jobs during the month.<\/p>\n

Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. president who\u2019s now director of the National Economic Council, used the report as validation of Trump\u2019s approach to bolstering the economy, which has included bringing in corporate executives to the White House to press them for hiring commitments and publicly scolding companies over plans to move production abroad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Sounds GREAT! Certainly will have all the Trumpians ecstatic and singing The Bullshitter In Chief’s praises.\u00a0 But wait a minute. Lets put on the thinking cap and examine this just a bit.<\/p>\n

FiveThirtyEight<\/a> – <\/strong>Hiring was strong and wage growth accelerated in President Trump\u2019s first full month in office. But don\u2019t give Trump credit, at least not yet.<\/p>\n

The U.S. economy added 235,000 jobs in February, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Friday<\/span><\/u><\/a>. That topped economists\u2019 expectations<\/span><\/u><\/a> and marked the second consecutive month<\/span><\/u><\/a> of strong hiring. The unemployment rate fell a tenth of a percentage point to 4.7 percent, reversing its January uptick. Average earnings rose six cents an hour and were up 2.8 percent from a year earlier.<\/p>\n

Trump will probably point to the report as proof that his economic policies are working. (On Friday, he retweeted a Drudge Report tweet<\/span><\/u><\/a> hailing the jobs number as \u201cgreat again.\u201d) That isn\u2019t supported by the evidence. Hiring was essentially the same in February as it was in January, when President Obama was still in office, and represented a continuation of an existing pattern of steady job growth. The jump in wages was widely anticipated by economists following an unexpected slowdown in January<\/span><\/u><\/a>, and the unemployment rate has been stuck in a narrow band just below 5 percent for most of the past year.<\/p>\n

Even if the economy does start to change direction in coming months, it\u2019s unlikely Trump or his policies will be the primary cause. Presidents in any case have little control over the economy<\/span><\/u><\/a>, especially in the short-term. The government can (probably) help ease the impact of a recession, and bad policies can (definitely) slow down growth. And presidential policies on things like education, infrastructure and tax policy can have long-term effects<\/span><\/u><\/a>, for good or ill. But presidents have little influence over the month-to-month ups and downs of hiring or inflation.<\/p>\n

What Friday\u2019s report does show is that the economy continues to hold in the steady-but-not-spectacular pattern that it\u2019s been in for most of the seven and a half years since the recession ended. U.S. employers have now added jobs for 77 consecutive months, a record, and the improving job market has begun to draw more Americans into the workforce<\/span><\/u><\/a>. Recent hiring has been relatively broad-based, with good-paying industries such as construction and professional services adding jobs alongside lower paying sectors such as retail and hospitality. (Retailers actually cut jobs in February, although that was probably a one-month blip.)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So, basically what we’re really seeing is the long term effects of the economic policies of the prior administration at work. Seven and a half years of policy and history is certainly more indicative the present than the one month<\/em> <\/strong>Trump has played president. But as we all know, Trump is incapable of doing anything other than tooting his own horn and telling everyone HE is responsible for making things Great Again.<\/em> \u00a0<\/em>Even when he has NOTHING to do with it.<\/p>\n

Much more relevant, interesting, and truthful<\/em> <\/strong>data BELOW THE FOLD<\/strong><\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bloomberg – President Donald Trump used the first federal jobs report of his presidency to promote a narrative of an invigorated economy that may strengthen his political position as begins the drive to win passage of legislative priorities including an Obamacare replacement and a tax overhaul. \u201cGREAT AGAIN: +235,000,\u201d Trump posted on his Twitter account … Continue reading Trump Is Not Responsible For Strong Job Numbers, Yet…<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[29,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-politics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8ovtF-6f","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":260,"url":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/260","url_meta":{"origin":387,"position":0},"title":"A Big Idea…","author":"Les","date":"February 27, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"THE BIG IDEA: As a House freshman, Jay Inslee lost reelection in 1994 because of voter frustration with Bill Clinton\u2019s first two years as president. Tom Foley, who represented an adjacent district, became the first Speaker to lose reelection since the depths of the Civil War. \u201cI\u2019ve personally experienced a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Government"","block_context":{"text":"Government","link":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/category\/government"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":360,"url":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/360","url_meta":{"origin":387,"position":1},"title":"Trump Quietly Installing Hundreds of Officials Across the Federal Bureaucracy…","author":"Les","date":"March 8, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"President Trump\u00a0may be slow in filling government positions requiring senate confirmation but such has not been the case for more obscure but\u00a0still important jobs spreading across the\u00a0federal bureaucracy\u00a0. 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UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal of May 13, 2016\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Government"","block_context":{"text":"Government","link":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/category\/government"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":401,"url":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/401","url_meta":{"origin":387,"position":3},"title":"Our Nation’s Most Powerful Check On President Trump…","author":"Les","date":"March 11, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Just finished reading an interesting opinion article of truth by The Washington Post editorial board. Donald Trump during his campaign for the presidency and in his address to the joint session of congress made many promises, promises that reality will block him from keeping. Both domestic and global realities will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Ethics"","block_context":{"text":"Ethics","link":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/category\/ethics"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":163,"url":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/163","url_meta":{"origin":387,"position":4},"title":"As Trump Continues To Struggle…","author":"Les","date":"February 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"It is an understatement to say the Trump administration is in disarray bordering on total chaos. Maybe it is by design. After all Trump selected Stephen Bannon, the former executive director\u00a0of Breitbart News\u00a0to be his Chief White House Strategist. As you probably know Breitbart is one of the right's biggest\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Government"","block_context":{"text":"Government","link":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/category\/government"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":543,"url":"https:\/\/rationalnationusa.com\/blog\/archives\/543","url_meta":{"origin":387,"position":5},"title":"The POTUS Has A Trust And Credibility Problem…","author":"Les","date":"March 29, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"West Long Branch, NJ \u00a0- Fully 8-in-10 Americans agree that Donald Trump has had a worse relationship with the media than his predecessors, with most saying this is hurting both his image and the media's image as well. 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