U.S. added just 73,000 jobs in July and numbers for prior months were revised much lower

[LetMyPeopleVote]

51. Maddow Blog-U.S. job growth turns cold as Trump's agenda takes its toll on the economy

The question for the White House is simple: “If Trump has created a ‘hot’ economy, why has American job growth slowed to a 16-year low?”

How weak is the job market? Excluding the pandemic, Americans haven’t seen employment numbers this bad since 2009 — during the Great Recession.

The question for the White House is simple: “If Trump has created a ‘hot’ economy, why has American job growth slowed to a 16-year low?”

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-08-01T13:38:22.471Z

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/us-job-growth-turns-cold-trumps-agenda-takes-toll-economy-rcna222448

Expectations heading into this week showed projections of about 100,000 new jobs having been added in the United States in July. As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the totals fell short of those expectations. CNBC News reported:

Nonfarm payroll growth was slower than expected in July and the unemployment rate ticked higher, raising potential trouble signs for the U.S. labor market. Job growth totaled 73,000 for the month, above the June total of 14,000 but below even the meager Dow Jones estimate for a gain of 100,000.

While the data from July was discouraging, far more important were the drastic revisions from May and June — which were down by a combined 258,000 jobs, compared with earlier, preliminary reporting.

Indeed, according to the revisions, the U.S. economy created just 33,000 jobs combined over May and June, which is a woeful total for an economy that Donald Trump and his Republican cohorts have incessantly described as “hot” in recent weeks.

Over the first seven months of 2025, the latest data suggests the economy has added 597,000 jobs. That might sound like a decent number, but over the first seven months of 2024 — when Trump said the economy was terrible — the total was over 1 million jobs, and over the first seven months of 2023, the U.S. economy added nearly 1.7 million jobs.....

Indeed, the question the president and his team ought to face is simple: “If Trump has created a ‘hot’ economy, why has American job growth slowed to a 16-year low?”