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Expectations heading into this morning showed projections of about 198,000 new jobs having been added in the United States in February. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the job market managed to do much better than that. CNBC reported:
Job creation eased slightly in February though still topped expectations and pointed to a vibrant U.S. labor market, even though the unemployment rate moved higher. Nonfarm payrolls increased by 275,000 for the month while the jobless rate moved higher to 3.9%.
“Folks, I inherited an economy that was on the brink,” President Joe Biden said in his State of the Union address. “Now our economy is literally the envy of the world. Fifteen million new jobs in just three years — a record. Unemployment at 50-year lows.”
Less than 12 hours later, the incumbent Democrat has new reasons to boast.
What’s more, in addition to the top-line data, we also learned that wage growth continued to outpace inflation. While the unemployment rate inched higher, the jobless rate has nevertheless been below 4% for 25 consecutive months — a streak unseen in the United States since the 1960s.
As for the politics, let’s circle back to previous coverage to put the data in perspective. Over the course of the first three years of Donald Trump’s presidency — when the Republican said the United States’ economy was the greatest in the history of the planet — the economy created roughly 6.35 million jobs, spanning all of 2017, 2018 and 2019.
According to the latest tally, the U.S. economy has created over 15.5 million jobs since January 2021 — more than double the combined total of Trump’s first three years.
In recent months, Republicans have responded to developments like these by pretending not to notice them. No one should be surprised if GOP officials keep the trend going today.
For some additional context, consider job growth by year over the past decade, newly updated to reflect the latest data revisions:
2013: 2.3 million
2014: 3 million
2015: 2.7 million
2016: 2.3 million
2017: 2.1 million
2018: 2.3 million
2019: 2 million
2020: -9.3 million
2021: 7.3 million
2022: 4.8 million
2023: 3 million
This post updates our related earlier coverage.