The U.S. economy just hit a wall. For the first time since the early days of the pandemic in 2020, America shed more jobs than it gained. The latest report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is bleak: just 22,000 jobs were added in August, and unemployment ticked up to 4.3%, the highest since October 2021.
Worse yet, it’s not just a one-off bad month. June’s job numbers were revised down, revealing a net job loss — something that hasn’t happened in more than five years.
Welcome to the Trump economy.
This report is the first under new BLS leadership — after President Donald Trump fired the previous director for reporting numbers he claimed were “a scam.” Now, under his hand-picked replacement, the data is even worse.
Economists had expected around 76,500 new jobs in August. What we got instead was less than a third of that. The miss wasn’t just big — it was historic.
This isn’t just a slow month. It’s a clear red flag. Job growth is slowing to a crawl, and key industries are bleeding positions. Professional and business services lost 17,000 jobs, more than any other sector. Government jobs fell by 16,000. Manufacturing dropped by 12,000.
In total, nine industries shrank — a widespread contraction that echoes the dark days of the Great Recession.
The labor market has officially flipped. There are more unemployed people than jobs for them — a reversal from the recovery momentum that had been holding steady since COVID-era disruptions. Trump’s economic promises aren’t just falling short; they’re collapsing in real time.
Inflation is still hanging over the economy, and his trade wars have spooked businesses into retreat. This is not the booming job market he sold to voters. It’s the opposite.
The Federal Reserve now finds itself back in crisis-mode. According to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool, there’s an 87.8% chance of an interest rate cut at the September 16-17 meeting. A quarter-point cut looks all but certain. But what’s new is this: a 12.2% chance of a bigger half-point cut, signaling just how severe the job situation is.
And it doesn’t stop there. Wall Street now sees a 70.5% chance of another rate cut in October, and 67.2% odds of another in December. Those numbers were significantly lower just one day ago. Friday’s jobs report changed everything.
This is not how a healthy economy looks. Under Trump, the job market is slowing, shrinking, and cracking at the seams. Industries are pulling back. Workers are being left behind. And the federal government is firing truth-tellers rather than facing facts.
You can’t tweet your way out of a recession. You can’t fire a statistician and expect the numbers to change. And you definitely can’t claim victory while the country loses jobs for the first time in half a decade.
This is the reality of the Trump economy. It’s not just underperforming — it’s unraveling.
