March 06, 2026 09:44 AM UTC

Trump's Job Market Takes Unexpected Nosedive

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• by: Colorado Pols

President Donald Trump claims he deserves an “A+++” on his management of the American economy since retaking office last year, but as readers know, there’s a growing gap between Trump’s imagination and the real-world experience of Americans struggling to make ends meet. As CNN reports, the latest jobs numbers out today showing a large and unexpected loss last month are roiling markets, and raising fresh questions about the reality of Trump’s so-called “Golden Age” economy:

Hiring at US businesses unexpectedly plunged last month as employers shed an estimated 92,000 jobs, according to new data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics…

Economists were expecting a net gain of 60,000 jobs last month, a sharp slowdown from January’s surprisingly strong total, which likely overestimated hiring because of some one-time factors such as weather. January’s job gains were revised down to 126,000 from 130,000 jobs.

December’s estimated job gains of 48,000 were revised down to a loss of 17,000 jobs. The US economy has shed jobs in five out of the past nine months. And since May (the first month after President Donald Trump announced his biggest wave of tariffs), the labor market has lost 19,000 jobs, BLS data shows.

Politico’s Sam Sutton reports that even Trump’s allies at the Heritage Foundation are fresh out of positive spin:

E.J. Antoni, the chief economist at The Heritage Foundation and Trump’s first pick to lead the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, called it an “UGLY jobs report.”

There’s “no way to sugar coat it, and the downward revisions still aren’t fixed,” the conservative economist posted on X. “And this was all BEFORE we attacked Iran and spiked energy prices.”

The combination of a weakening labor market and higher energy prices poses serious risks to Republicans in the coming months as the administration tries to repair Trump’s approval rating on the economy.

The dilemma can be summarized this way. Trump holds about 30% of the electorate in a state of cultlike devotion, completely impervious to reality on the ground. The remainder Trump needed to win a slim majority in 2024 were willing to ignore Trump’s multitude of downsides on the expectation that Trump would deliver economic growth. For as much as we argue about the range of hot-button issues that drive the debate in American politics and define the opposing sides, there is a very large segment of the population that doesn’t care about any of that stuff–only the bottom line for their pocketbook. If Trump delivers economic growth, millions of Americans will happily say he can protect America’s elites from the Epstein files, enrich his family with brazen corruption, and persecute disfavored minorities all he wants.

Without a strong economy, Trump has nothing. The sole justification to look past Trump’s immorality, ignorance, and ineptitude on every other issue evaporates.

Every other headline generated by the Trump administration is about distracting from this one.