Is the economy really “booming” like the Trump Administration would have you believe?
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday that over 300,000 jobs were created in February, making it the best single-month total since July 2016. And unless you’ve been exploring the Arctic Circle or were kicked off Twitter for expressing politically incorrect views, you know that’s just the latest “great” news about the booming economy, bull market in stocks, and, best of all, the significant new job creation since Donald Trump became president.
Certainly, there is no denying that the stock market has continued to rise, with the S&P 500 up over 27 percent since 11/7/2016, as of this writing. But as for the overall economy and, specifically, job creation, even the Trump-hating liberal media seems to have fallen for an economic Jedi mind trick. Regardless of single-month spikes like the one that occurred last month, it only takes one click of the mouse to see that job creation continued to fall in 2017, as it had the previous two years. Looking at yearly totals over the past ten years, job creation looks a lot more like a protracted version of the last business cycle leading up to the 2008 crash.
Year
Jan
Feb
Mar
Apr
May
Jun
Jul
Aug
Sep
Oct
Nov
Dec
Total*
2008
8
-81
-55
-229
-184
-154
-213
-277
-443
-475
-759
-707
-3569
2009
-787
-704
-802
-704
-354
-469
-342
-196
-229
-209
12
-277
-5061
2010
18
-73
193
221
522
-140
-78
-16
-63
267
129
73
1053
2011
44
182
254
323
81
234
72
112
233
209
145
201
2090
2012
348
233
264
72
117
68
156
173
194
153
130
243
2151
2013
207
265
156
179
240
158
111
260
201
210
221
93
2301
2014
174
182
261
311
252
306
196
226
284
255
307
251
3005
2015
211
267
78
282
326
191
256
164
88
351
264
234
2712
2016
103
257
235
174
34
285
325
175
264
140
172
180
2344
2017
259
200
73
175
155
239
190
221
14
271
216
175
2188
2018
239
313
*Total column added to BLS data
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