Economist torches Trump’s job creation with brutally simple graph

Thomas Kika
5h
Donald Trump as he makes a campaign stop at manufacturer FALK Production in Walker, Michigan, U.S. September 27, 2024. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

President Donald Trump has tried to make big claims about saving the economy and creating jobs, but one prominent economist has torched those claims with one brutally simple graph.

Steve Rattner is a prominent investor and MS NOW economic analyst, who also previously served as the lead adviser for former President Barack Obama's auto industry task force. In recent years, he has been highly critical of Trump's economic performance, often using clear data to demonstrate how wrong his claims have been.

On Monday, Rattner took to his official X account with a new graph, demonstrating how poor the job numbers have been under Trump, after inheriting a "strong labor market" from former President Joe Biden.

"President Trump inherited a strong labor market from President Biden," Rattner wrote. "Since his inauguration, average monthly job creation has fallen dramatically: from 122k/month in 2024 to 33k/month in 2025-26."

In the graph, Rattner compared the last year of Biden's term to the entirety of Trump's second one, so far. Overall, the average monthly numbers tracked downward as Trump's term wore on, with the monthly numbers only going into the negative once he was sworn in.

"This morning's jobs report was shockingly negative," Rattner wrote in a post from last week. "Not only did the economy lose 23,000 jobs in July — the previous estimates for May and June were revised down by 103,000. These numbers are a major red flag indicating the labor market is weaker than previously thought."

Trump and his allies, when they are not reflexively blaming Biden for most issues, have tried to claim that the DOGE layoffs were part of what drove less-than-ideal job numbers under his watch, while also claiming that major growth is just over the horizon. Critics, conversely, have attributed the decline to his erratic economic agenda, especially his tariffs.

On Friday, Rattner shared another graph, this time exposing the gradual decline of wage growth during Trump's second term, wiping out the gains workers were making before Biden left office. The start of his Iran war also led inflation to eclipse wage growth for the first time on the graph, which again dated back to the start of Biden's final year.

"Wage growth ticked below inflation again last month," Rattner explained. "That means Americans' average wages shrunk in real terms over the past year. Real wages were growing when Biden left office, but the trend flipped negative after Trump launched the Iran War.

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