Minor Improvements and Much Confusion

In the latest job report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the official unemployment rate was low again at 4.1%. If that number fully measured unemployment, we might be close to full employment. We at NJFAN, and others too, believe that real unemployment is much higher. We estimate that in August it was 9.7% and that 17.1 million people were out of work and wanting to work. By contrast, the BLS judged that there were only about 7 million truly unemployed people.

Meanwhile, the job numbers that come from non-farm employers (“payroll” or “establishment” numbers) were positive. They increased by 162,000. That was one of the best showings in the last two years. The average increase for this indicator had been just 31,000 over the previous twelve months. That is not exactly a booming labor market. But these numbers were a little better last month, and one of them almost—for a minute--made an honest man of the president and his sycophants. Manufacturing employment actually increased by 16,000. Not a lot, but positive. Manufacturing jobs have grown by just 58,000 since December of 2025, so we are not exactly “bringing back” the factories. This 58,000 is less than 1% of total manufacturing employment.

Other interesting specifics in the latest report include the fact that the share of the unemployed who have been out of work 27 weeks or longer is somewhat higher than it was in 2024 and 2025. So it is a little more of “low hire” economy. More importantly, thousands of people are being thrown out of the economy and out the country. There are fewer people for employers to hire because of Trump’s war on immigrants. The total labor force—employed people and serious job-searchers—fell by a huge number from June of 2025 through July of 2026: 1,6576,000. August saw some recovery, but we are still below the size of the labor force in mid-2025.

The plight of immigrants is affecting the numbers in a variety of ways, some of which are difficult to understand. Over the last year (August to August) the number of foreign-born men in the labor force fell by 740,000. That is what we would expect. The next three facts are more complex.

The number of foreign-born women in the labor force increased by 362,00. We would not have predicted that.

The number of native-born men in the labor force decreased by over a million. I thought these were the guys who were going to rush to get all the great jobs that had been stolen by immigrants.

Native-born women rushed for jobs more than men did. They added 371,000 jobs over the year. I do not have explanations for all these interesting and sometimes unexpected outcomes. Perhaps some of them are statistical blips that will go away over time.

Who’s Counting?

Meanwhile, sceptics without knowledge are proud to show that they have no faith in the unemployment numbers that the BLS publishes. A Democratic big shot named Mike Nellis does not believe the good jobs report for August, and, in fact, he does not believe “a single number that comes out of this administration. Not one.”  Tough guy. I wonder if Mike believed the numbers over many of the past months when payroll job numbers were bad for Trump. Perhaps the Trump administration just now cottoned on to the idea of cheating. And do we have any evidence that the employees at the Bureau are messing with the numbers?  Have there been disgruntled and/or fired employees who claim that they were pressured to change numbers? I have not heard of any.

I would be very interested to see inside information that shows that the Trump administration is successfully pressuring BLS employees to fix the numbers. I have seen none. In August of last year, Trump fired BLS commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, because he did not like what the official numbers showed. He planned to replace her with a right-winger known for twisting the facts, E. J. Antoni, but people or events led him to announce that he would appoint Brett Matsumoto, an economist with an economics doctorate from the University of North Carolina and years of experience in government work, including at the BLS. Trump finally nominated him on May 11, and he was confirmed on August 7, 2026. He does not believe that BLS employees have falsified the numbers. He must be aware that the agency has to fill quite a few vacancies and modernize some of its methods. Will he get the funding for these things?

Columnist Robert Reich, Labor Secretary in the Clinton administration, claims that the BLS just cannot handle all the new stuff, including the expulsion of immigrants and the surge of baby-boomer retirements. Reich did not present any details to back up his assertions and especially his claim that we cannot trust the basic numbers. You’d think that a former head of the Labor Department would be cautious about throwing out wild theories, especially in the current political climate when wild assertions are being made by top people in the government.  

By the way, Mr. Reich is a slightly younger man than I and so he may have less experience in the field of baby booms and early retirement than I. While the baby boom is often said to have begun in 1946 and ended in 1964, actual events are not as neat as those two numbers. For one thing, some people retire before the age of 65, so the BLS and other government agencies must already have some experience with a surge in retirements. Also, adding to that same point, there was a baby boom that began in the very late thirties and continued into the war. Some of the best products of this pre-boom boom—I am one—retired many years ago. I imagine that the BLS already has some years of experience dealing with larger cohorts of retirees. It may be true that the agency is understaffed. Maybe Robert can use his experience to discuss that.

One more note on the issue of reliable numbers. Years ago, apparently wise radical friends taught me that capitalists too wanted accurate numbers; they needed facts to carry on their businesses, so they did not want fake numbers. If once true, I am not sure it is any more. It is clear from the slavish behavior of many business executives that they are willing to give glory to a president who is as dishonest and careless with the facts as any in recent history.

Finally, What’s Happening with Wages?

Along with the non-farm job totals which have been weakish for many months, there is another number that has often been largely negative. Government data have shown that for several years and not just in this Trump term, average after-inflation wages have performed poorly. Real hourly wages for rank-and-file workers did not grow at all between August of 2025 and August of 2026. For the longer period since August of 2024, they increased by 1.1%. Whoopee. This followed two lousy years during the pandemic when wages first fell and then only partially recovered. And here’s an even longer view: the total increase in average real hourly wages over the period of August, 2021 through August, 2026 was 2%. That’s five years and just 2%. Meanwhile the president and his family and other very rich people have grabbed hundreds of billions of dollars of income. I know, it is naive of me to write about low wages and filthy rich billionaires in the same paragraph.