U.S. President Donald Trump reacts, as he attends a ceremony held to dedicate a 4-mile stretch of road from West Palm Beach Airport to his Mar-a-Lago estate as 'President Donald J. Trump Boulevard'. (REUTERS)
Bulwark site editor Jonathan Last says President Donald Trump’s jobs numbers are forcing Americans to long for the days of Joe Biden.
“Yesterday Peter Navarro went on Fox Business and warned Panicans not to freak out over the jobs numbers that would come out this morning,” Last pointed out, citing Navarro as saying: “We have to revise our expectations down significantly for what a monthly job number should look like.”
“Well, we got those jobs numbers this morning and . . . wow,” said Last, pointing to a YouGov surveys showing 46 percent of respondents believe the Trump is doing a worse job than Biden, as opposed to 40 percent who feel Trump is doing a better job.
“That’s right. By a margin of 46 to 40, voters think Biden did a better job as president,” said Last, despite the fact that 130,000 jobs were added in January. This is because 130,000 new jobs for the month of January shouldn’t sound good compared to the jobs created under Biden. This includes more than 300k jobs created at Biden’s last report — compared to the abrupt loss of jobs under Trump and his middling job creation record since.
“Congratulations, Mr. President, on achieving job growth for one month that would have been among the worst of Biden’s term,” Last said.
And even the 130,000 new jobs Trump allegedly created in January may not be the real numbers. Jobs numbers are always revised as more numbers come in, and Trump’s revisions for 2025 were “brutal” said Last. The seasonally adjusted total number of jobs added for all of 2025 revealed the Trump economy only added 181,000 jobs.
“That’s the Trump economy,” said Last. “Again, I want to make very clear what happened: In 2023, under Joe Biden, the economy added 3 million jobs. In 2024, still under Biden, it added 2.2 million jobs. In 2025, under Trump, it added just 181,000 jobs. … This is a story about an economy getting throttled by one man and his capricious, destructive governance. And you see it across pretty much every indicator. Job growth way down. Unemployment slowly drifting up. And wage growth slowing.”
The numbers showed voters still consider inflation a big boogeyman, among other concerns that growth has slowed, job creation has “halted almost entirely, consumer sentiment is wobbly, and tariffs have increased some prices but—more importantly—have made investment and long-term commitments dangerous.”