We finally got a September jobs report now that the government shutdown has ended. And while we saw more jobs that month, both July and August were revised downward, and unemployment at has reached 4.4 percent — the highest its been in four years. Today, Ali Velshi breaks down Trump’s economy with guests economist Justin Wolfers and Chief Business Editor for People Inc. Caleb Silver, and talk about who in America is being hit the hardest and why.
Between lagging job creation and persistent inflation, many Americans are suffering in Trump’s economy, but the numbers reveal that Black women are suffering most from the Trump administration’s policies. Between slashing the federal workforce (which had doubled the share of Black women working in it compared to the wider labor market) and actively attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives in academia and the private sector, over 300,000 Black women have lost jobs between February and September of this year, bringing their unemployment rate up to 7.5 percent.
Compounding this suffering are tariffs, which Trump assured Americans would create jobs in manufacturing. This, Silver and Wolfers point out, has not happened. Not only has the cost of living risen significantly as a result, but all goods-producing industries have slowed as a result of increased prices. And this imagined “manufacturing renaissance” isn’t the pathway to the middle class that Trump’s economy envisions. To make matters worse, the uncertainty with which this administration approaches all policy is, as Silver says, “kryptonite.”
LISTEN: ECONOMISTS ON THE IMPACT OF TRUMP’S ECONOMY
WATCH: VELSHI, WOLFERS, AND SILVER DISCUSS THE JOBS REPORT
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