JOSH BOAK Associated Press

The new data exposed the widening gap between the booming economy Trump promised and the more anemic reality of what he’s managed to deliver so far. WASHINGTON — The U.S. job market has gone from healthy to lethargic during President Donald Trump’s first seven months back in the White House, as hiring has collapsed and inflation has started to climb once again as his tariffs take hold. Friday's jobs report showed employers added a mere 22,000 jobs in August, as the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.3%. Factories and construction firms shed workers. Revisions showed the economy lost 13,000 jobs in June, the first monthly losses since December 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. The new data exposed the widening gap between the booming economy Trump promised and the more anemic reality of what he’s managed to deliver so far. The White House prides itself on operating at a breakneck speed, but it’s now asking the American people for patience, with Trump saying better job numbers might be a year away. “We’re going to win like you’ve never seen,” Trump said Friday. “Wait until these factories start to open up that are being built all over the country, you’re going to see things happen in this country that nobody expects.” The plea for patience has done little to comfort Americans, as economic issues that had been a strength for Trump for a decade have evolved into a persistent weakness. Approval of Trump’s economic leadership hit 56% in early 2020 during his first term, but that figure was 38% in July of this year, according to polling by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. The situation has left Trump searching for others to blame, while Democrats say the problem begins and ends with him. Trump maintained Friday that the economy would be adding jobs if Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had slashed benchmark interest rates, even though doing so to the degree that Trump wants could ignite higher inflation. Investors expect a rate cut by the Fed at its next meeting in September, although that’s partially because of weakening job numbers. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Trump’s tariffs and freewheeling policies were breaking the economy and the jobs report proved it. “This is a blaring red light warning to the entire country that Donald Trump is squeezing the life out of our economy,” Schumer said. By many measures, Trump has dug himself into a hole on the economy as its performance has yet to come anywhere close to his hype. — Trump in 2024 suggested that deporting immigrants in the country illegally would protect “Black jobs.” But the Black unemployment rate has climbed to 7.5%, the highest since October 2021, as the Trump administration has engaged in aggressive crackdowns on immigration. — At his April tariffs announcement, Trump said, “Jobs and factories will come roaring back into our country and you see it happening already.” Since April, manufacturers have cut 42,000 jobs and builders have downsized by 8,000. — Trump said in his inaugural address that the “liquid gold” of oil would make the nation wealthy as he pivoted the economy to fossil fuels. But the logging and mining sectors — which includes oil and natural gas — have shed 12,000 jobs since January. While gasoline prices are lower, the Energy Information Administration in August estimated that crude oil production, the source of the wealth promised by Trump, would fall next year by an average of 100,000 barrels a day. — At 2024 rallies, Trump promised to “end” inflation on “day one” and halve electricity prices within 12 months. Consumer prices have climbed from a 2.3% annual increase in April to 2.7% in July. Electricity costs are up 4.6% so far this year. The Trump White House maintains that the economy is on the cusp of breakout growth, with its new import taxes poised to raise hundreds of billions of dollars annually if they can withstand court challenges. At a Thursday night dinner with executives and founders from companies including Apple, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Meta, Trump said the facilities being built to develop artificial intelligence would deliver “jobs numbers like our country has never seen before” at some point “a year from now.” But Michael Strain, director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, noted that Trump’s promise that strong job growth is ahead contradicts his unsubstantiated claims that recent jobs data was faked to embarrass him. That accusation prompted him to fire the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics last month after the massive downward revisions in the July jobs report. Strain said it’s rational for the administration to say better times are coming, but doing so seems to undermine Trump’s allegations that the numbers are rigged. “The president clearly stated that the data were not trustworthy and that the weakness in the data was the product of anti-Trump manipulation,” Strain said. “And if that’s true, what are we being patient about?” The White House maintained that Friday's jobs report was an outlier in an otherwise good economy. Kevin Hassett, director of the White House National Economic Council, said the Atlanta Federal Reserve is expecting annualized growth of 3% this quarter, which he said would be more consistent with monthly job gains of 100,000. Hassett said inflation is low, income growth is “solid” and new investments in assets such as buildings and equipment will ultimately boost hiring. But Daniel Hornung, who was deputy director of the National Economic Council in the Biden White House, said he didn’t see evidence of a coming rebound in the August jobs data. “Pretty broad based weakening,” Hornung said. “The decline over three months in goods producing sectors like construction and manufacturing is particularly notable. There were already headwinds there and tariffs are likely exacerbating challenges.” Stephen Moore, an economics fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and supporter of the president, said the labor market is “definitely softening,” even as he echoed Trump’s claims that the jobs numbers are not reliable. He said the economy was adjusting to the Trumpian shift of higher tariffs and immigration reductions that could lower the pool of available workers. “The problem going forward is a shortage or workers, not a shortage of jobs,” Moore said. “In some ways, that’s a good problem to have.” But political consultant and pollster Frank Luntz took the contrarian view that the jobs report won’t ultimately matter for the political fortunes of Trump and his movement because voters care more about inflation and affordability. “That’s what the public is watching, that’s what the public cares about,” Luntz said. “Everyone who wants a job has a job, for the most part.” From the perspective of elections, Trump still has roughly a year to demonstrate progress on improving affordability, Luntz said. Voters will generally lock in their opinions about the economy by Labor Day before the midterm elections next year. In other words, Trump still has time. “It’s still up for grabs,” he said. “The deciding point will come Labor Day of 2026.” Copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.     

He used what's called a 'pocket recession,' which effectively cut the budget without going through the legislative branch. WASHINGTON, D.C., USA — President Donald Trump has told House Speaker Mike Johnson that he won't be spending $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid, effectively cutting the budget without going through the legislative branch. Trump, who sent a letter to Johnson, R-La., on Thursday, is using what’s known as a pocket rescission — when a president submits a request to Congress to not spend approved funds toward the end of the fiscal year, so Congress cannot act on the request in a 45-day timeframe and the money goes unspent as a result. It's the first time in nearly 50 years a president has used one. The fiscal year draws to a close at the end of September. The letter was posted Friday morning on the X account of the White House Office of Management and Budget. It said the funding would be cut from the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, an early target of Trump's efforts to cut foreign aid. If the White House standardizes this move, the president could effectively bypass Congress on key spending choices and potentially throw into disarray efforts in the House and the Senate to keep the government funded when the next fiscal year starts in October. The use of a pocket rescission fits part a broader pattern by the Trump administration to exact greater control over the U.S. government, eroding the power of Congress and agencies such as the Federal Reserve and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, among others. The administration has already fired federal workers and imposed a historic increase in tariffs without going through Congress, putting the burden on the judicial branch to determine the limits of presidential power. A White House official, who insisted on anonymity on a call with reporters to discuss the move, declined to say how the administration might use pocket rescissions in the coming years or what the upper limits of it might be as a tool. The official expressed confidence the administration would prevail in any legal challenges and said a goal of the proposed spending cuts was to make the cleanest case possible for these types of clawbacks. Winding down USAID Secretary of State Marco Rubio posted on X that USAID is essentially being shuttered and congratulated White House budget director Russ Vought for managing the process. “USAID is officially in close out mode,” Rubio said. “Russ is now at the helm to oversee the closeout of an agency that long ago went off the rails.” The 1974 Impoundment Control Act gives the president the authority to propose canceling funds approved by Congress. Congress can within 45 days vote on pulling back the funds or sustaining them, but by proposing the rescission so close to Sept. 30 the White House argues that the money won't be spent and the funding lapses. What was essentially the last pocket rescission occurred in 1977 by Democratic then-President Jimmy Carter, and the Trump administration argues it’s a legally permissible tool despite some murkiness as Carter had initially proposed the clawback well ahead of the 45-day deadline. Pushback against pocket rescissions The move by the Trump administration drew immediate backlash in parts of the Senate over its legality. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said in a statement that the Constitution “makes clear that Congress has the responsibility for the power of the purse” and any effort to claw back funds “without congressional approval is a clear violation of the law.” “Instead of this attempt to undermine the law, the appropriate way is to identify ways to reduce excessive spending through the bipartisan, annual appropriations process," Collins said. Congress approves rescissions regularly as part of this process." Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York warned that Trump's use of the pocket veto could undermine the normal funding process and risk “a painful and entirely unnecessary shutdown.” After all, any budget agreements reached in the Senate could lack authority if the Trump White House has the power to withhold spending as it sees fit. Schumer said in a statement that Republican leaders have yet to meet with Democrats on a path to fund the government after the fiscal year ends on Sept. 30 just as Trump tries an “unlawful gambit to circumvent the Congress all together.” "But if Republicans are insistent on going it alone, Democrats won’t be party to their destruction,” Schumer said. ‘No exceptions’ Eloise Pasachoff, a Georgetown University law professor and expert on federal spending issues, has written that the Impoundment Control Act allows rescissions only if Congress acts within 45 days, meaning the the White House alone cannot decide to not spend the funds. “This mandatory language admits no exceptions, indicating that Congress expects the funds to be used as intended before the end of the fiscal year if it does not approve the proposed rescission,” Pasachoff wrote in an academic paper last year. What's in the funding? The funds in the pocket rescission package include $3.2 billion in development assistance grants, $520 million for the United Nations, $838 million for international peacekeeping operations and $322 million to encourage democratic values in other countries. Trump had previously sought to get congressional backing for rescissions and succeeded in doing so in July when the House and the Senate approved $9 billion worth of cuts. Those rescissions clawed back funding for public broadcasting and foreign aid. The Trump administration has made deep reductions to foreign aid one of its hallmark policies, despite the relatively meager savings relative to the deficit and possible damage to America's reputation abroad as foreign populations lose access to food supplies and development programs. In February, the administration said it would eliminate almost all of USAID's foreign aid contracts and $60 billion in overall assistance abroad. USAID has since been dismantled, and its few remaining programs have been placed under State Department control. The Trump administration on Wednesday appealed to the Supreme Court to stop lower court decisions that have preserved foreign aid, including for global health and HIV and AIDS programs, that Trump has tried to freeze. The New York Post first reported the pocket rescission. AP writers Mark Sherman and Stephen Groves contributed to this report. Copyright 2025 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.