No matter how many deceptive posts might circulate from former President Donald Trump and his GOP allies, the economy isn’t collapsing in any real-world sense.
According to a report recently released by the federal Labor Department, 253,000 jobs were added across the economy in April, per a metric known as nonfarm payroll employment. Although some have tried to discredit job gains in recent months and years as not really connected to the Biden team and more just a natural correction from the economic chaos seen during the early parts of the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems short-sighted at best to simply assume that economic recovery would have taken place at such a robust rate following the widespread unemployment experienced after COVID-19 struck.
What if Donald Trump was, in fact, still in office and had expanded the panoply of tariffs imposed by his administration? Despite his startlingly persistent ignorance, tariffs — meaning taxes on imports — are generally paid by the importers… meaning U.S. businesses!
The total number of jobs added in April is significantly higher than the revised total for March, which was at 165,000 in the latest report, shaving tens of thousands off earlier reports for that month. The same report also had details on recent changes in income, with promising early signs suggesting recent growth in some workers’ incomes outpaced inflation, meaning the general increase in prices. In April, the average hourly earnings level rose by 0.5 percent, evidently compared to the prior month’s numbers. April inflation numbers from either the Labor or Commerce Department aren’t available yet, but the Labor Department’s March report showed a month-to-month general increase in prices at 0.1 percent. The April numbers do come out soon, though, setting up a more detailed opportunity for comparison.
In general, unemployment also remains low. The familiar metric known as the unemployment rate was at 3.4 percent in April. For over a year, that rate has been within about half a percentage point of the level recorded for last month, showing a high level of employment for individuals involved in the formally defined labor force.
