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— NAVIGATING THE INSANITY* —
On Wednesday, Republicans scored a win of sorts when the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) announced that the US economy added 818,000 fewer jobs in 2023 and early 2024 than initially estimated, which would indicate that the labor market is less robust than generally believed.
We say “would indicate” because even these figures are preliminary, and final numbers won’t be available in February of 2025.
The reason that these revisions take place is that the monthly employment numbers that BLS releases on the first Friday of each month are based on surveys. Conversely, the new data, which comes from state unemployment offices, is more accurate, but it takes a lot longer to compile.
This isn’t a new process, but this revision is unusually large.
It indicates that, over the 12-month period ending in March, the economy “only” added 174,000 jobs per month, which is about 25 percent lower than previously thought.
Now, all of that is good news for Republicans, who are arguing that President Joe Biden’s Vice President Kamala Harris’s economic policies are not working because the economy merely added two million new jobs instead of almost three million.
Therefore, it is perfectly legitimate for them to point out what happened. Nobody could blame them if they didn’t offer a nuanced explanation for why these revisions are made.
They can simply say: “Harris Economy Adds Nearly One Million Fewer Jobs Than Initially Thought,” or point out that this means 115,000 fewer manufacturing jobs, and that would be completely fair.
But Donald Trump had to make it weird (which means that other GOP lawmakers will follow his lead and make fools of themselves as well).
Let’s see how the former president reacted and why it makes him look like a fool.
“MASSIVE SCANDAL! The Harris-Biden Administration has been caught fraudulently manipulating Job Statistics to hide the true extent of the Economic Ruin they have inflicted upon America,” he started his Truth Social rant.
Just about nothing in those two sentences is true.
This isn’t a “massive scandal,” but rather a standard process (although the revision was larger this time than in previous years). Nothing about this is “fraudulent,” and nobody caught the “Harris-Biden administration” (which doesn’t exist) trying to hide any information. The only reason why we know about this is because the Labor Department told us. That’s the opposite of hiding.
In addition, BLS published the revisions at a terrible time for Harris, who is going to formally accept the Democratic nomination on Thursday.
Finally, there is no “economic ruin.”
This is classic Trump. He has taken even a legitimate win and turned it into a lie.
There are any number of ways to use this information to the GOP’s benefit, but this isn’t one of them.
The post goes on and on in typical Trumpian fashion, e.g., by telling Americans that their “life savings will be wiped out” (the stock market is near record highs right now), but it’s just more of an old man yelling at his computer screen and not even worth mentioning. If you want to read the whole crazy thing, just click on the link above.
*In his Navigating the Insanity columns, Klaus Marre provides the kind of hard-hitting, thought-provoking, and often humorous analysis you won’t find anywhere else.
