WASHINGTON—Donald Trump’s constant bragging about a great economy is a lie. The Bureau of Labor Statistics for December and for the year shows an economic dud.
The nation’s official unemployment rate ended the year at 4.4%, up from 4% when Trump took over the Oval Office and 3.8% in December 2024. There were officially 7.5 million jobless people at the end of last year, 600,000 more than in December 2024.
But those figures conceal a story that is really much worse. The Economic Policy Institute has not calculated official figures, but it is generally accepted, until 2024, that about 250,000 more jobs must be created each month just to keep up with the number of people who should be entering the job market.
It means that there are millions of first-time job seekers without a job, but not counted as unemployed. That means that in reality we are approaching stagflation, a combination of unemployment and inflation which, of course, is really bad news for any economy. Only a capitalist system prone to crisis can concoct simultaneous inflation and unemployment. With the help of Trump administration policies, it is even more possible and may well be what is happening.
The last time we suffered this way was at the beginning of the Ronald Reagan administration, when there was double-digit inflation and unemployment simultaneously. The Federal Reserve then, as now, failed in its primary legal responsibility to guarantee full employment.
Businesses claimed to create a net of only 35,000 new jobs in December—even fewer than their average monthly rate of 49,000 for the entire year. Monthly job creation in 2024 was 168,000, also below what was needed to keep the economy healthy.
Adding to the damage that was already happening was that one of every 11 federal workers, 277,000 or 9.2%, is gone because of Trump’s firings.
In some agencies, such as the Departments of Labor and Education, the percentages are a lot higher, thanks to the Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought and trillionaire Elon Musk and his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE.
And that number of jobless federal workers could increase again soon. The temporary money bill that keeps the government going through January 30 also freezes Vought’s firings and Musk’s chainsaw. But after that January date, expect more workers to get pink slips.
One-quarter (1.9 million) of all jobless workers have been unemployed for six months or more, and that’s 397,000 more long-term jobless than in December 2024. And 5.3 million people in December toiled at part-time work even though they wanted full-time jobs.
That’s 984,000 more than in December 2024. Think Starbucks baristas who want to work standard workweeks with set hours, and more, not fewer, than 20 hours a week.
“The slowdown in job growth this year is stark compared to 2024, when it was still below where it should have been. The average monthly gain was only 49,000 in 2025 compared to 168,000 in 2024. Over the last three months, average job growth was actually negative, meaning there are fewer jobs now than in September,” Economics Policy Institute Senior Economist Elise Gould tweeted. Her number includes government jobs, not just the private sector.
Trump also brags about bringing back factory jobs to the U.S. But the nation’s manufacturers shed jobs during 2025. They ended the year with 12.692 million workers, down from 12.786 million workers in December 2024. And construction employment was down in December (-11,000 jobs) but up for the year by 84,000, to 8.303 million workers.
Even low-paying sectors that normally grow didn’t in December, the BLS said. Retailers usually add jobs, even temporary jobs, that month to handle the holiday gift-buying rush. This past December, they shed workers, down 25,000 to 15.539 million. In December 2024, they had employed 15.954 million.
And warehouses—think Amazon—ended the year with 1.79 million workers, down 7,200 in one month and 100,000 from December 2024.
“Leisure and hospitality gained 47,000 jobs in December after falling in November,” Gould added. “Retail jobs fell along with construction, professional and business services, and manufacturing. Manufacturing has lost jobs every month over the last eight, down 72,000 since April.”
We hope you appreciated this article. At People’s World, we believe news and information should be free and accessible to all, but we need your help. Our journalism is free of corporate influence and paywalls because we are totally reader-supported. Only you, our readers and supporters, make this possible. If you enjoy reading People’s World and the stories we bring you, please support our work by donating or becoming a monthly sustainer today. Thank you!
CONTRIBUTOR
