The White House on Tuesday touted the latest employment figures as a sign of a “strong, American First economy,” highlighting gains in the private sector.
“Since President (Donald) Trump took office, 100% of the job growth has come in the private sector and among native-born Americans — exactly where it should be,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote Tuesday.
Private-sector businesses have indeed driven job growth this year while public sector employment has declined – entirely because of steep federal workforce cuts by the Trump administration. From January through November, the US economy added 499,000 jobs: The private sector added 687,000 jobs and the government (federal, state and local) shed 188,000 jobs.
However, the pace of job growth has fallen off: The year-to-date employment gains – overall and private-sector – are the weakest since 2020 and, before that, the Great Recession.
Additionally, it’s impossible to attribute gains in the monthly jobs report to any particular demographic or the documentation status of workers. Labor force and demographic statistics are drawn from an entirely different survey than the monthly payroll numbers.
Also, the White House is relying on datasets – employment levels for native-born and foreign-born workers – that are not designed for those estimations, economists such as Jed Kolko have noted.
The estimated nativity numbers are drawn entirely from responses to a survey with a small sample size. Additionally, the broader employment levels are adjusted annually to align with Census population estimates; as such, the resulting numbers have to add up to the predetermined population controls, he noted in an August post on the topic.