Jobs Numbers Hit Record Low as Trump’s Economy Craters |
Donald Trump’s so-called “Golden Age” is seriously screwing American workers, according to the latest jobs report.
The U.S. economy added just 50,000 jobs in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, underperforming expectations from Wall Street. December’s meager job offerings capped off total job creation in 2025 at roughly 584,000 total jobs, making it the worst year for hiring since the Covid-19 pandemic that ravaged the American economy. 2025 also saw the weakest annual job growth since 2003.
Since Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs announcement, job growth has screeched to a halt—and may even be in decline, according to economist Justin Wolfers.
Heather Long, the chief economist for Navy Federal Credit Union, pointed out that the bulk of hiring last year happened in April, when 158,000 jobs were added to the economy.
The worst month for job creation was October, when the market lost a staggering 173,000 jobs (revised up in the latest release from 105,000) as federal workers ousted by Elon Musk’s DOGE departed their government roles. November gains were also revised down from 64,000 to just 56,000.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell slightly to 4.4 percent, after reaching its highest rate in four years. The unemployment rate was overall up from 4 percent in January 2025.
The first year of Trump’s so-called “Golden Age” has been a rough one. 2025 ended with the number of people employed part-time for economic reasons up by 980,000, the number of long-term unemployed people up by 397,000, and the number of people not in the workforce but wanting a job up 684,000.
National trust in federal authority has plummeted in the wake of several ICE shootings, leading at least two mayors to denounce the government.
Two people in Portland, Oregon, were shot by Border Patrol agents during a traffic stop Thursday evening, leading Mayor Keith Wilson to acknowledge that federal agents have made American towns less safe.
Speaking at a press conference late Thursday, Wilson called on the Department of Homeland Security and ICE to quit “all operations in Portland”—but not before he called out the Trump administration for twisting the reality that Americans are experiencing with their own eyes and ears.
“We know what the federal government says happened here. There was a time when we could take them at their word,” Wilson said. “That time is long past.”
Oregon Governor Tina Kotek was in lockstep, claiming at the same press conference that “federal agents at the direction of the Department of Homeland Security are shattering trust.”
“They are destroying day by day what we hold dear,” Kotek said.
The current status of the two shooting victims is not currently known, according to state and city officials in Oregon.
The shooting occurred just one day after an ICE agent killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis shortly after she dropped off her 6-year-old child to school. Her death sparked national fervor, particularly after the Trump administration vehemently defended the agent with an explanation of the incident that did not line up with video footage of the assault.
Penning a New York Times op-ed Thursday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey argued that Donald Trump was lying to the country about what had taken place in his city. He cited the escalating violence that ICE agents had enacted against the Minneapolis community in recent months, including incidents in which ICE agents dragged a pregnant woman through the street, sparked chaos at libraries, and hurled chemical agents at high school students on school grounds.
But further still, Frey argued that the president and his officials had undermined public safety by deliberately dividing the public on a federally sponsored killing, caught on tape.
“The actions of the ICE agents deployed to my city are dangerous, and now, even deadly,” Frey wrote. “But that danger has been compounded by the administration’s claim that the victim committed an act of domestic terrorism.”
Video evidence of the incident suggested Good was letting other vehicles pass her on the road before she attempted to get out of the officers’ way, in an attempt to comply with ICE’s orders. However she was momentarily halted when the masked agents approached her window.
As she began to move her vehicle away from the agents, an officer standing in front of her red Honda Pilot sidestepped the car, moving toward the driver’s side before he pulled the trigger multiple times through her open window, video recording illustrates.
The officer then extended his arm and chased after Good as her SUV accelerated down the road, seemingly uncontrolled, before smashing into a utility pole and several parked vehicles.
Somehow, Trump officials have interpreted the clip as an act of aggression, in which they claim that the attacking ICE agent—identified by the Minnesota Star-Tribune as Jonathan Ross—was acting in self-defense. Trump claimed that Good “behaved horribly,” while Vice President JD Vance argued Thursday that Good’s death was effectively her own fault as he believed she had been “brainwashed.”
But after watching “multiple videos from multiple perspectives,” Frey wrote he agreed with eyewitnesses that “it seems clear that Ms. Good, a mother of three, was trying to leave the scene, not attack an agent.”
A new video shows the minutes leading up to the killing of Renee Good by a federal immigration officer from a new angle—and further casts doubt on the Trump administration’s smears.
The video obtained by CNN Thursday night showed Good’s Honda Pilot arriving at the site of the incident........