Dante
I have always been here
I'm not sure why elected representatives of the people, including the President always promise "Jobs." It's not like they will employ people, even in government jobs. It's not politicians are a human resources entity.
A year ago President Trump declared “Liberation Day,” unleashing the highest tariffs in more than 80 years in an attempt to end a system under which, he argued, “foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once-beautiful American dream.” To prove that he was turning the tide, he offered one impressive statistic: In one month, he said, “We created 10,000 — already, in a few weeks — new manufacturing jobs.”
Perhaps Mr. Trump should have knocked on wood because as more information became available, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised that number downward. In a full accounting, during the first full month of his second term, the United States lost 2,000 manufacturing jobs. Losses continued almost every month, totaling 100,000 manufacturing jobs since January 2025.
Mr. Trump is not the first president to make an ill-timed boast about the return of manufacturing jobs. In his 2024 State of the Union address, President Joe Biden declared, “We’ve got 800,000 new manufacturing jobs in America and counting.” The next morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy had lost 4,000 manufacturing jobs the previous month. More losses followed, in almost every subsequent month of Mr. Biden’s presidency, totaling 202,000 in his last year. The 800,000 new jobs he exulted in were not the beginning of a sustained recovery of manufacturing but rather the return of some of the 1.4 million positions lost during the Covid pandemic.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden ran up against something that predecessors going all the way back to Ronald Reagan had already experienced: Reversing the loss of manufacturing jobs is extremely hard — and not necessarily desirable.
A year ago President Trump declared “Liberation Day,” unleashing the highest tariffs in more than 80 years in an attempt to end a system under which, he argued, “foreign leaders have stolen our jobs, foreign cheaters have ransacked our factories and foreign scavengers have torn apart our once-beautiful American dream.” To prove that he was turning the tide, he offered one impressive statistic: In one month, he said, “We created 10,000 — already, in a few weeks — new manufacturing jobs.”
Perhaps Mr. Trump should have knocked on wood because as more information became available, the Bureau of Labor Statistics revised that number downward. In a full accounting, during the first full month of his second term, the United States lost 2,000 manufacturing jobs. Losses continued almost every month, totaling 100,000 manufacturing jobs since January 2025.
Mr. Trump is not the first president to make an ill-timed boast about the return of manufacturing jobs. In his 2024 State of the Union address, President Joe Biden declared, “We’ve got 800,000 new manufacturing jobs in America and counting.” The next morning the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the economy had lost 4,000 manufacturing jobs the previous month. More losses followed, in almost every subsequent month of Mr. Biden’s presidency, totaling 202,000 in his last year. The 800,000 new jobs he exulted in were not the beginning of a sustained recovery of manufacturing but rather the return of some of the 1.4 million positions lost during the Covid pandemic.
Mr. Trump and Mr. Biden ran up against something that predecessors going all the way back to Ronald Reagan had already experienced: Reversing the loss of manufacturing jobs is extremely hard — and not necessarily desirable.
