The Left’s Premature Celebration Over Jobs Data

any people described the jobs report that dropped from the Bureau of Labor Statistics on August 1 as “disappointing.”

But it wasn’t disappointing for the left and other anti-Trump redoubts. On the contrary, it was cause for celebration. Experts had expected the economy to add 110,000 jobs in July. It added only 73,000. Cue images of “The Scream” by Edvard Munch. Moreover, the robust reports from May and June were revised downwards by 285,000. Of course, bad news for Trump was good news for the denizens of the anti-Trump fever swamps.

But the joy was short-lived. Trump himself quickly weighed in to describe the numbers as “rigged.” He also noted that Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the Commissioner of Labor Statistics, drastically overstated job growth in March 2024 and then again in August and September, just before the 2024 presidential election. Those numbers were subsequently revised downwards by 828,000 and 112,000, respectively.

Trump concluded that McEntarfer had “faked the jobs numbers” and promptly fired her. Whether or not that was politic—or, more to the point, whether it was good politics—is perhaps a question worth considering. It was music to the ears of the anti-Trump squadrons, however, since it gave them something else to complain about. Professional anti-Trumper Anne Applebaum, for example, reposted a critical comment by Pete Buttigieg (remember him?), charging that Trump’s behavior was “very Soviet, except that Stalin then arrested and executed the statisticians.” Portraying Trump as Stalin is a change from the usual Trump as Hitler comparison, though it’s not exactly an upgrade.