NY Times Speechless over 'How Good' Jobs Numbers Are
President Donald Trump and the media outlet he often dubs “the failing New York Times” finally have something to agree about — the jobs report released Friday by the Department of Labor.
“We Ran Out of Words to Describe How Good the Jobs Numbers Are,” read The New York Times‘ headline for Friday’s “The Upshot” column by Neil Irwin.
Trump even passed along those comments through his Twitter account, which is generally more prone to quoting the mainstream media’s critics.
“We ran out of words to describe how good the jobs numbers are.” Neil Irwin of the @nytimes.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 2, 2018
But this Times piece was different.
Irwin wondered “whether there are enough synonyms for ‘good’ in an online thesaurus to describe them adequately.”
He trotted out the word “great” to rave about the 5.9 percent unemployment for black Americans. That number is the lowest on record.
As a candidate, Trump attacked the federal system for reporting on unemployment, claiming that the number was far higher when people who gave up looking for work were factored in.
“Don’t believe these phony numbers,” Trump said in 2016, according to NPR. “The number is probably 28, 29, as high as 35 (percent). In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent.”
On Friday, the Labor Department said that even counting those who have given up looking for work, unemployment has fallen to 7.6 percent.
Irwin brought out the words “splendid” and “excellent” as he evaluated the numbers.
“Those are the kinds of terms that are appropriate when the United States economy adds 223,000 jobs in a month, despite being nine years into an expansion, and when the unemployment rate falls to 3.8 percent, a new 18-year low,” he wrote.
In fact, as reported by CNN, the only time since 1969 when unemployment has been this low was in April 2000.
Yesterday- @realDonaldTrump announced trade sanctions to strengthen US businesses
Last night- Anti-Trump media slam the policy, warns of global trade war
This am- Jobs report shows record high US employment, Black employment, women employed..
Today- Media deflated, sad faces
— 🇺🇸 ERIC BOLLING 🇺🇸 (@ericbolling) June 1, 2018
The US unemployment rate has fallen to an 18-year low of 3.8% with 223,000 new jobs added in May! This month’s #JobsReport is something that we can ALL celebrate.
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) June 1, 2018
Some restrained their praise.
“It was certainly a good number, with some weather-related bounce-back in construction,” Diane Swonk, an economist with Grant Thornton, told The Times in a different article.
The White House, however, said this could be just the beginning.
“Business is coming alive,” said White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow, according to CNBC. “This could go on for a whole bunch more years, in my judgment.”
Irwin shared that bottom line.
“(T)he thing to take away from the May numbers is that the United States economy just keeps humming along at a steady pace, putting more people to work and at gradually higher wages,” he concluded.
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