Trump's Golden Age of ADP Payroll losses: Biden had only one month of losses, but Trump already has four! MAGA!

 

Women not in labor force still outnumber men not in labor force 1.4:1 in 3Q2025

 

Donald Trump's Dumb Ass Unemployment Rate for September 2025 was 37.56%, higher than his first term average when he averaged 96.4 million eating but not working

 The Trump I Dumb Ass Unemployment Rate averaged 37.35% 2017-2020 inclusive.

Through three quarters of 2025 an average of 102.67 million are eating but not working. 

I don't make the rules. Rush Limbaugh and Donald Trump made the rule. 

 

 

Elon Musk's DOGE was all sound and fury, signifying nothing: Federal employment in Sep 2025 is down just 97,000 from January

 

Not the greatest economy ever, not by a long shot: Full time jobs in Sep 2025 moved sideways with just 49.48% of the population working at one

 The data was delayed by the federal government shutdown.

The current level is little better than Sep 2016 at 49.08%.

 

 

Year to date spot gold is up ~54%

By comparison, Total Stock Market Index VTSAX is up 14.83% ytd through yesterday.

Total Bond Market Index VBTLX is up 6.4%.

... The [gold] rally has been driven by a cocktail of factors, including . . . a weak dollar. ... -- CNBC 

Would these people know a weak dollar if they saw it?

Trying to explain gold like this is just silly.

The Nominal Broad U.S. Dollar Index is 120.51, down 7.4% from the January all time high of 130.21.

The all time low for this index was under Obama in July 2011, at 85.46.

You remember the summer of 2011, right? 

The dollar was at its weakest, America lost its AAA rating, and precisely net zero jobs were created that August, the first time since WWII.

We have a strong dollar today, not a weak one.

 

In the absence of labor statistics because of the federal government shutdown, here's Initial Claims for Unemployment, not seasonally adjusted, for 48 states, DC, and Puerto Rico through 9/27/25

  The states continue to collect their data and it gets transmitted to FRED at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank for each state. You just have to hand-tally it since the Feds won't due to the shutdown.

My result for 9/27/25 for 48 states and DC and PR reported this morning: -2,229.

MA, AZ, and Virgin Islands initial claims reporting lags by a week. 

The largest downtick was in Texas at 3833.

The largest uptick was in Kentucky at 3049. 

Declining initial claims is good. 

Compare 9/20/25 at -14,822:

 

In the absence of labor statistics because of the federal government shutdown, here's Continued Claims for Unemployment, not seasonally adjusted, for 48 states, DC, and Puerto Rico through 9/20/25

 The states continue to collect their data and it gets transmitted to FRED at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank for each state. You just have to hand-tally it since the Feds won't due to the shutdown.

My result for 9/20 for 48 states and DC and PR reported this morning: -21,866.

MA, AZ, and Virgin Islands continued claims reporting lags by a week. 

Texas was down 4994, California 3562, Pennsylvania 2765, New Jersey 2351, New York 1439, Connecticut 1437, and Virginia 1275.

The largest uptick was in Michigan at 940, followed by Kentucky at 430.

Declining continuing claims is good. 

Compare 9/13/25 at -32,092:

 

ADP private payrolls fell 23k in June, 3k in August, and now 32k in September

The net gain since January now stands at 366k, or slightly fewer than 46k per month.

The net gain per month since May has been 46k.

The trend is clearly lower since October 2024 when 221k were added. 

 

There wasn't a spike in jobless claims last week after all: it was due to attempted claims in Texas which were fraudulent

I hope the Fed got the memo.

 

Federal government employment is down 97,000 since January in August 2025, state is down 31,000, but local government employment is up 104,000

 Here, here, and here.

Foreign born employment actually recovered by 50,000 in August 2025 while native born employment fell by 561,000, and the Trump administration, unlike last month, is pretty quiet about it lol

 

Looks like someone's fishing for a rate cut from the Fed with that seasonally-adjusted initial claims for unemployment disparity with not-seasonally adjusted

 

There's a lot of BS and fear-mongering being circulated about the preliminary total nonfarm payrolls benchmark revision of -911,000 from two days ago

It all betrays an inability to think. 

Bloomberg here said:

... The number of workers on payrolls will likely be revised down by a record 911,000, or 0.6%, according to the government’s preliminary benchmark revision out Tuesday. The final figures are due early next year. ...

No, it's not at all likely.

It's a preliminary number for crying out loud, the size of which reflects more on the increasing difficulty BLS is having gathering the monthly data in more or less real time than it does on the data itself. 

Bloomberg then followed that up with a scary chart of previous preliminary benchmark revision estimates, as if those represented reality, too. And then people who should know better repeated the scary chart.

This story went particularly hysterical about it: The BLS Hallucinated a Million Jobs. The Fed Can't Fix This. 

But we've known since February what the BLS really thinks the final numbers are, in thousands, and all these irresponsible sources just leave that out, because . . . clicks:

2024: -598, not -818

2023: -187, not -306

2022: +506, not +462

2021: -7, not -166

2020: -121, not -173

2019: -489, not -501

2018:  -16, not +43

2017: +135, not +95

2016: -81, not -150

2015:  -172, not -208.

 

But what does it all mean, Bertie? 

 

Over ten years BLS is saying it overestimated in its regular monthly total nonfarm payrolls reports by a net 1.03 million jobs, not by 1.722 million as in the preliminary benchmark revision reports.

 

The reality's not even 9,000 jobs a month too many, in a payroll universe where nearly 160 million people are working, but I'm supposed to be scared because they thought it might have been more like an overestimate of 14,000 a month?

 

C'mon, man. 

 

They're doing a damn good job at BLS, and it's time more people said "thank you" for a change.

 

If you want to politicize the February benchmark data, they show Biden's record over four years had a net 286,000 fewer jobs in reality, but Trump I had 491,000 fewer.

 

But you won't hear that from this flock of idiots. 

 

  

 

 

 

Friday's bad job report spooked Treasury buyers big time, pushing yields down 4.5% in the aggregate from the August average in a flight to safety

Average US Treasury yields by duration Fri Sep 5, 2025:

Bills 3.96

Notes 3.69

Bonds 4.75

Aggregate 3.98 (down 4.5% from Aug average).

The aggregate was already down 6.5% from January in August. The only yields still holding up had been in bonds, which gave up 11 basis points on Friday, yielding 4.75 vs. the August average of 4.86, down about 2.2%. 

The rosy scenario, which isn't rosy, is for stagflation. The worse scenario is for recession, possibly signaled by the revision to June payrolls, now down 13k.

You know, like in January 2001, but past performance is no guarantee of future results.

The point is, people are spooked. 

 

 

Trump says that a year from now the jobs numbers will be absolutely incredible

Yeah, that's what we're afraid of.

Story. 

U.S. Treasury yields tank in flight to safety after August 2025 jobs only +22k: Fed rate cut incoming

 

Donald Trump's dumb ass unemployment rate is 37.57% in August 2025, 103 million eating but not working

 

Just 49.44% had a full time job in August 2025

 You know, like in August 2016.

 

 

Let's compare the BLS' count of jobs added through August since December with the private sector ADP report

Total nonfarm gubmint: 74,750 per month

Total nonfarm private:  80,375 per month

Those rascally Democrats over at BLS, my word.