Reclaiming Common Sense

 Best November Jobs Report Since 1979

How Is President Trump Doing after 34 Months in Office?


The Monthly Employment Situation Report is a market mover. The report is created using two different data sets: the Current Population Survey (CPS) jobs and unemployment data and the Current Employment Statistics (CES) worker and wages data.


We Added 504,000 non-seasonally adjusted private sector workers this month. We added 266,000 seasonally adjusted Non-Farm Payroll Workers. We added 254,000 SA Private Sector Workers. That s only half of the Story.  We added part-time jobs while trimming full-time jobs and cutting the number of unemployed workers. This was covered in "Nov. Jobs Report: Surprise, Surprise." We had a record number of private sector workers earning record setting hourly wages during November. Only Mining and Logging had fewer workers month to month and November to November, according to the CES data. This was covered in the article. November Jobs Report: Manufacturing Success." There are some people saying that not everybody is winning in the current Trump Economy. How is he doing compared to his predecessors?


President Trump has seen 8.370 million full-time jobs created since he took office. He has also seen the addition of 48,000 part-time jobs. Last month full-time jobs were lost and part-time jobs were gained. There are also 2.708 million fewer unemployed workers than when he took Office.

  • Former President Obama: (-677,000FT) 1.311 M PT, (-396,000 U-3)
  • Former President Bush: 1.152M FT, 1.367M PT 2.487M U-3
  • Former President Clinton 5.616M FT 2.955M PT (-3.134M U-3)
  • Former President Reagan 2.524M FT, 2.354M PT, 383,000 U-3

President Trump wins the Full-time creation race. Former President Clinton wins the total job creation race.


President Trump has overseen worker growth in all sectors. This cannot be said about his predecessors.

  • Former President Obama saw declines in ten of eleven sectors. The only sector than grew was Education and Health Services. (Net loss of 3.264 million workers.)
  • Former President Bush saw declines in five sectors. Decline in Manufacturing, IT, TTU, and PBS are most notable. (Net gain of 884,000 workers)
  • Former President Clinton saw growth in all sectors except Mining and Logging. The largest gains were in TTU, Construction, PBS, EHS, and LAH (Net gain of 11 million workers.)
  • President Trump has added the most workers for EHS and LAH. President Trump has added comparable numbers of Construction and Manufacturing workers as did President Clinton. (Net gains of 10.3 million workers.)

The similarities in the gains of former President Clinton and President Trump are important.  Construction and Manufacturing workers can propel the economy further and faster than Leisure and Hospitality Jobs and Other Services.


Government Math is a little fuzzy. The headline numbers are always seasonally adjusted data. The seasonal factors change by data set, by category, month and year. This month it meant that a net gain of 504,000 NSA CES Private Sector workers was reported as a gain of 254,000. This data was recorded approximately 100,000 workers higher than November 1994 and reported 150,000 workers lower than November 1994. The data after 34 months in office look like this:

  • Former President Clinton added 8.6M jobs and 11.0M workers
  • President Trump has added 8.4M jobs and 10.2M workers
  • Former President Regan added 4.9M jobs and 2.6M workers
  • Former President Bush added 2.3M jobs and only 0.9M workers
  • Former President Obama added 0.6M jobs and LOST 3.3M workers

There has to be consideration in the difference between full-time jobs and part-time jobs. There also has to be consideration given to the difference between full-time jobs and part-time jobs. There has to be consideration given to which sectors have better wages.


Participation Matters. Participation rose under former Presidents Regan and  Clinton, and under President Trump. Participation rates fell under former Presidents Bush and Obama. Unemployment rates rose under President Bush and declined under the other Presidents during their first 34 months. This means that former President Clinton and President Trump are the only ones to reduce unemployment and increase participation.


There are many ways to analyze the data. Jobs are up. Workers are up. Wages are up. The next article will look at multiple job holders and how men and women are doing with regard to the CPS jobs and unemployment data.


It's the Economy.