Friday’s employment report for March will give Trump another chance to fall into a trap that has captured so many other presidents.
The experts are expecting growth of 175,000 to 180,000 jobs, which is rather ordinary considering the Federal Reserve is trying to persuade people that the economy is growing swiftly enough for interest rate hikes.
But Wednesday, ADP reported a much-better-than expected March jobs report. And while that report doesn’t necessarily indicate what will come from the Labor Department on Friday, the ADP news was good enough to send stock prices flying early in the day. The White House may have reason to celebrate someday. But for now, it should delay its gratification.
Trump also got a nice little gift last month when the February employment report came in at a stronger-than-expected 235,000 new jobs. Trump said then — or maybe joked, as some allege — that the Labor Department figures were now trustworthy because he is president.
Let’s hope he was joking.
The procedures for putting together the monthly job growth figures and the nation’s unemployment rate haven’t changed just because Trump has come to office. In fact, the next few months will be a test of whether the new president will be gullible amid the springtime gyrations in the economic statistics.
My idea: Trump should contain his emotions if the numbers are good and not whine if they are bad, because there are a whole lot of unusual special factors in the months ahead that will affect the figures.
Trump will love the April and May reports. But he needs to realize that he is hearing statistical noise and not a well-oiled economy. Not yet.