And that is what We Liberals like to Call "Math."

 

May 2, 2025: The right-wing folks celebrated today when news was announced that the economy added 177,000 jobs in April. 

Suddenly, it was “Trump’s economy” again, not “Biden’s economy,” which he said it was, when stock prices were slumping two weeks ago. 

(To be fair, stock prices were also up today.)

 

This hard-working blogger tries to present a fair representation of reality. So, let’s look at the reaction to the jobs report on X, where the ill-informed go to offer up opinions based on nonsense. I’m not sure who started the trend here, but the MAGA types got excited and posted about the April report, citing CNN to prove they weren’t cherry picking good numbers. 

One gentleman posted, with clueless excitement: “477,000 jobs added in one month,” which in his mind proved President Trump was crushing it, since economists expected 135,000! 

MegaBigBalls25 copied that post and spread the good news, setting the MAGA faithful to cheering. 

The glad tidings went out over X, and someone named “Devory Darkins” (below) decided to spread the news even further, also without careful checking. And, still, he got 7.3 thousand likes – which is a sad commentary on the reading comprehension of the MAGA faithful, indeed. 

See if you notice anything amiss: 

 

(Head for the optometrist if you still don’t get it.) 

 

As already stated, the humble blogger tries to present an honest picture of what is going on during the second Trump administration. So let’s look at job numbers over a longer period. In 2024, the U.S. economy added 2,012,000 jobs, or 167,667 per month. 

In 2023, the U.S. economy added 2,594,000 jobs, or 216,167 per month. 

In 2022, the economy added 4,555,000 jobs, a whopping 379,583 per month. Yes. We know. Many of those jobs were added after the COVID collapse began to be reversed. And in 2021, the economy added or recovered 7,237,000 jobs – a massive recovery, any way you analyze it. 

(That’s Joe Biden’s jobs record.)

 

At this point, you are sure to get treated to a dose of the Fox News blah, blah, blah from the MAGA believers; but 177,000 is not a killer jobs report. It’s not bad; but it’s like getting socks for Christmas. 

You can use them, but you won’t be excited. 

In Trump’s first 37 months in office (January 2017-February 2020), during his first term – and before the pandemic hit – he added an average of 185,622 jobs per month (6,868,000 total). 

This blogger does not blame the COVID collapse on President Trump, even if he did suggest idiotic ways to treat infections. So, let’s credit him for a good run during the first three years he held office. 

In the same fashion, this blogger does not blame President Obama, who did inherit a mess, after the U.S. economy crashed under George W. Bush. The economy shed jobs every month, during 2008, with a Republican at the helm, and kept shedding jobs all of 2009, after a Democrat took over. 

Not till October 2010 did the situation finally stabilize – and then for the next 75 months, through December 2016, jobs were added every month, without fail. 

(We give the divided month of January 2017 to Trump, to be gracious.)

 

I will let you do the math, using this graph from the Department of Labor Statistics, and you can see who did better, per month, Obama in his last 75 months, or Trump during his first 37. 

 

Okay, I lied. I couldn’t wait to see if the MAGA faithful would do the math. I did it for them. In Obama’s last 75 months, the U.S. economy added: 

2010   488,000 in the final three months (162,667 per month)

2011   2,058,000 (171,500 per mo.)

2012   2,186,000 (182,167 per mo.)

2013   2,229,000 (191,583 per mo.)

2014   2,991,000 (249,250 per mo.)

2015   2,713,000 (226,083 per mo.)

2016   2,331,000 (194,250 per mo.)

 

That would be: 14,996,000 jobs added, or 199,947 per mo. Or you could say that Mr. Obama did far better in his second term than Trump did in his first, even before COVID shut down the economy. 

And that is what we liberals like to call “math.” 

 

UPDATE: Job numbers are revised twice before they are finalized. The May jobs report cuts the “jobs added” number for March to 120,000. The April number is also revised downward to 147,000. 

The preliminary job numbers for May are 139,000. Clearly, these are not numbers a president can brag about.

February 23-28, 2017: Trump Says "Nobody Knew Health Care Could Be so Complicated" - Labels Media "the Enemy of the People."

 

2/23/17: Iraqi forces continue their advance to wrest Mosul from ISIS. In the process they have already lost 5,000 killed and wounded. This is the plan – to let Iraqis fight their own battles. It was implemented when Mr. Obama was still in office and Trump referred to as “a total disaster” during his run for president. The U.S. lost 4,539 men and women fighting in Iraq during the Bush years.  

Under Obama that number fell, thankfully, to 300.

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2/24/17: In a speech to CPAC, Trump attacks the free press and claims media enemies won’t credit him even if he receives a standing ovation. 

“And I want you all to know we are fighting the fake news. It’s fake. Phony. Fake. A few days ago, I called the fake news the enemy of the people, and they are. They are the enemy of the people.”  

The problem is that Trump considers any bad news or criticism related to his policies or actions to be “fake news” and believes only what he gleans from watching Fox & Friends. (See: 3/5/17.)

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2/25/17: Trump tweets: “The media has not reported that the National Debt in my first month went down by $12 billion vs. a $200 billion increase in Obama first mo.” 

Oh, those terrible people who write newspapers and talk on radio and TV! 

Then again, you need to be suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s to ignore the fact that the U.S. economy was tanking in January 2009, when Mr. Obama took over. We do know President Trump suffers from delusions, as when he insists that he “inherited a mess” when he took office. 

Did you know the economy added jobs 76 months in succession before Trump took a seat in the Oval Office?

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2/26/17: Philip Bilden, Trump’s pick for Secretary of the Navy, withdraws due to conflict-of-interest issues. Bilden’s “qualifications” for the post include a stint in the U.S. Army Reserves and twenty-five years’ work with a “global private equity investment management firm.” 

 

FUN FACT: The populist president displays an affinity for placing billionaires in top cabinet and government roles. They include Betsy DeVos, the Amway Queen, Wilbur Ross, Vincent Viola (who latter withdraws from consideration), Todd Ricketts and Linda McMahon, of WWE fame. 

Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin is worth a paltry $300 million. You could argue, perhaps, that he brings the common man’s perspective to White House deliberations.

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“Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.” 

2/27/17: In a meeting at the White House, Trump explains his difficulty repealing and replacing Obamacare. “Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.”

Every man, woman, and child in America, other than the president, knew healthcare was complicated.

­­­___ 

 

2/28/17: A raid in Yemen ends with death for U.S. serviceman William “Ryan” Owens. Trump shirks responsibility – says the raid was planned before he took office – says, hey, I’m only president. It wasn’t my fault Owens was killed. It was the generals! “This was something they wanted to do. They came to me, they explained what they wanted to do, the generals, who are very respected, the most respected that we’ve had in many decades, I believe. And they lost Ryan [emphasis added].”  

You know in your heart: if the raid had been a success, Trump would have claimed the plan as his own.

Owens was a Navy Seal.

June 7, 2019: Who Inherited a Mess? Obama or Trump?

 

6/7/19: The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that 75,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in May. 

Studying the chart below, see if you can determine which president inherited a mess and had to dig the country out of a catastrophic recession once he took office. 

Obama? 

Or Trump?

 

April 18, 2020: Donald Trump Never Inherited a Mess - Barack Obama Did

 

4/18/20: This seems like a good time to take a look at a jobs chart from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Here, we go back twenty years, and include the start of 2020, to illustrate several points.

 

____________________ 

An absolute miracle of math! Candidate Trump claims, under President Obama, that 93 million Americans are out of work. Trump takes over in January 2017. A month later, they almost all have jobs.

____________________

  

Let’s start with 2000. In November, when George W. Bush won a first term as president, the unemployment rate stood at 3.9% percent. By September 2001, when we were attacked, the rate had risen to 5.0%. It shot up after the attack. Few experts, if any, blamed President Bush for the spike. 

It fell again over the next few years. When the housing bubble burst in 2008, the jobless numbers ballooned to 8.3% in January 2009. 

That was when Barack Obama took over. So, let’s get this much straight: President Obama inherited a mess.

 

Consider the number of jobs added monthly, since January 2000. Below, we total up jobs added to the U.S. economy annually: 

2000:   1,937,000                                        

2001:   1,727,000 (loss)                              

2002:      416,000 (loss)                              

2003:      112,000                                         

2004:   2,036,000                                        

2005:   2,525,000                                        

2006:   2,100,000                                        

2007:   1,143,000                                        

2008:   3,553,000 (a)                                   

2009:   5,051,000                                        

2010:   1,034,000 (b)

2011:   2,074,000

2012:   2,176,000

2013:   2,301,000

2014:   3,004,000

2015:   2,720,000

2016:   2,345,000 (c)

2017:   2,139,000 (d)

2018:   2,314,000

2019:   2,133,000 (e)

 

(a) You can see Barack Obama inherited a mess. Job losses were terrible and accelerating when he took over in January 2009. 

(b) Starting in October 2010, job growth begins. For the next 76 months growth continues. 

(c) Candidate Trump will insist during his run for office, that the job numbers under his predecessor are “phony”  and “rigged.” He will claim that 93 million Americans are out of work. He will variously state that the real unemployment rate is 18% or 35% or 29% or 42%. 

(Trump has never been particularly good with facts.)

 

(d) An absolute miracle of math! When the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that unemployment has fallen from 4.7% in January 2017 to 4.6% in February, Trump’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer, says the numbers might have been rigged before. Now the figures are real. There were 93,000,000 Americans looking for work the month before.

The economy added 188,000 jobs. 

Poof. 

Just like that, almost all of the 92,812,000 Americans looking for work disappear!

 

(e) Fun fact: In Barack Obama’s last seven years in office, after we dug out of the Great Recession, 15,654,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy (2011-2016). That would average out to 186,357 per month. 

In President Trump’s first 38 months in the Oval Office a total of 7,075,000 jobs were added, for an average of 186,184.