Overview
- Hours after senior advisers Peter Navarro and Kevin Hassett urged markets to lower expectations and linked smaller monthly gains to deportations, the BLS reported 130,000 jobs added in January with unemployment at 4.3%.
- Annual benchmarking cut 2025 job growth to 181,000 from a previously reported 584,000, a unusually large downward revision that signals a weaker labor market than earlier estimates indicated.
- Navarro argued that roughly 50,000 monthly jobs should be considered a new steady state due to mass removals of undocumented workers, a claim he presented without evidence.
- BLS figures indicate foreign‑born workers remained about 19.4% of the labor force, virtually unchanged from last year, and analysts noted this undercuts the assertion that deportations are driving lower job creation.
- Economists and commentators, including Paul Krugman, criticized the administration’s framing, and new polling cited by the Bulwark showed voters preferring Joe Biden’s economic record over Trump’s by 46% to 40%.