Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump pounced on the news the federal government overstated job creation numbers, blaming the Biden-Harris administration for a “massive scandal” of manipulating data to make their economic policies look good.
The Department of Labor released revised hiring statistics showing the nation added 818,000 fewer jobs than initially reported between early 2023 and early 2024.
“It really isn’t a revision — it is a total lie,” Mr. Trump said at a campaign stop in Asheboro, North Carolina. “There has never been any revision like this.”
He said President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, got “caught.”
“They wanted it to come out after the election, but somehow it got leaked. The Harris-Biden administration has been caught fraudulently manipulating jobs statutes to hide the true extent of the economic ruin that they have inflicted on America,” Mr. Trump said.
The updated numbers did not come from a leak but from a routine preliminary data revision that the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases semiannually.
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However, the report did reflect the biggest downgrade since 2009. It is the latest evidence that the job market is steadily slowing and adds to expectations the Federal Reserve will start cutting interest rates soon.
The Labor Department pegged the job growth average at 174,000 per month in the year ending March, a 68,000 monthly drop from the 242,000 initially reported.
The final numbers will be released next year.
Mr. Trump said the Biden-Harris administration has a habit of putting out fake data, including on crime, and he said “Comrade Kamala” will destroy the job market.
“Millions and millions will vanish and inflation will destroy our country,” Mr. Trump said. “With a Trump victory, we will once again have the greatest economy in history.”
Others said the revised numbers offered a clearer look at what had seemed obvious to some economists.
Alfredo Ortiz, CEO of Job Creators Network, a conservative advocacy group, said, “This dramatic downward revision of job creation confirms what JCN and those on Main Street have long said: The labor market is far weaker than topline numbers suggest and has been dominated by government and quasi-government jobs. This fuller view of the jobs market nullifies a year’s worth of exaggerated headlines that have helped the Biden-Harris administration present a false picture of economic strength.”
The White House has insisted the economy remains in a strong position. After the Aug. 5 stock market downturn, press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: “While there’s been some volatility, our economy is indeed resilient.”
The downgraded estimate Wednesday follows a jobs report for July that was much worse than expected, leading many economists to suggest that the Fed had waited too long to begin cutting interest rates to support the economy. The unemployment rate rose for the fourth straight month, to a still-low 4.3%, and employers added just 114,000 jobs.
In the revisions announced Wednesday, new professional and business services jobs — a broad category that includes managers and technical workers — were reduced by 358,000 in the 12 months that ended in March. Leisure and hospitality employers — including hotels and restaurants — added 150,000 fewer than first reported.
• Tom Howell contributed to this story, which includes wire service reports.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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