7 million jobs

This is part of the Trump's Accomplishments fact-check series, the Unprecedented Economic Boom section, and the the world’s most prosperous economy subsection.

The Trump Administration claimed "America gained 7 million new jobs – more than three times government experts’ projections." This page focuses on the actual number of jobs gained.

Jobs Data
Source: Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) website, originally derived from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The data was retrieved Tuesday, February 2nd, 2021.

Fact-Check - Essentially Accurate, Context-Sensitive
It's clear from the full text of the subcategory, this claim is only intended to cover the part of Trump's Presidency prior to COVID-19. Between Trump's swearing-in and the peak before COVID-19, America gained 6,836,000 jobs. "7 million jobs" is only slightly off, 2.3%. Rated: Essentially Accurate.

This is a carefully chosen claim. Various ways to judge the significance to Trump's jobs record include (from most favorable to least):


 * If you count Trump's entire term excepting those two job loss months, America gained a gross 19,157,000 jobs.
 * If one were to examine only the jobs regained after the COVID-19 low point, you could say America gained 12,321,000 jobs.
 * The Trump Administration claim of 7,000,000 goes here.
 * The era that the Trump Administration examined goes here, with America seeing 6,836,000 new jobs between Trump's swearing-in and COVID-19's advent.
 * Some believe that a President can't really be held responsible for the national economy until his greatest tool, the federal budget, goes into effect on Oct 1st. By that standard, America gained 5,267,000 jobs in the 28 months of Trump-signed budgets before COVID-19
 * America's jobs trend during Trump's entire term (less a month) was a net loss of 3,003,000 jobs.
 * The jobs record from Oct 2017 to our most recent data shows America losing 4,572,000 thus far. We'll have to wait until late Nov 2021 to find out the final number of Trump-era jobs by this standard.
 * America lost 22,160,000 jobs in the two next months, Feb to Apr of 2020, the single fastest job loss on record.

The median figure of these various standards is the mean of 6,836,000 and 5,267,000; in other words, 6,051,500 jobs.

Different standards for how to judge can make Trump responsible for the best job creation ever or the worst job loss ever, or for a variety of positions in between. Rated: Context-Sensitive.

World's Most Prosperous Economy? Mostly False.
Methods: America's jobs record can be compared to foreign nations' over many different periods of time, and by many different figures including total job growth and job growth as a percentage. If you do total jobs, countries with more people will tend to have more job growth (and more job loss) simply because there are more people. Bearing that in mind, I'm going to do both comparisons anyway. Job growth could also be compared on the same time scale, or by shifting the relative time scale relative to the lowest jobs point due to COVID-19.

Comparisons:

Here are various countries' total job growth and % job growth from Jan 2017 to Feb 2020, the continuous era that the Trump Administration used for their figures. All sources in this section were accessed 2021-02-03.

† The necessary data is not out available, so a scaled estimate is included in parentheses.

∫ The data for Indonesia is very rough and approximate. Better data is available for a price that I wasn't willing to pay.

By raw numbers, the US economy did well but Indonesia seems to have done better (China, India, and Brazil might be close competitors, too, but I couldn't find data to verify). By percentage increase in jobs, we're in the middle of this pack and certainly not the best in the world. Rating: MOSTLY FALSE.

Unprecedented Boom? False.
Over Trump's entire administration (less a month), America lost 3,003,000 jobs. Over Obama's entire administration, America gained 11,572,000 jobs. Over W. Bush's entire administration, America gained 1,357,000 jobs. Over Clinton's entire administration, America gained 22,904,000 jobs. Trump's administration had the lowest and the only negative job trend among these four Presidents.

Some believe that a President can't really be held responsible for the national economy until his greatest tool, the federal budget, goes into effect Oct 1st after he is sworn in. This change can only make job growth during the Trump Administration look worse relative to his contemporary peers, so we'll spare him by skipping it.

Some argue that Trump didn't cause COVID-19 and shouldn't be held responsible for economic damage caused by it. So let's drop the COVID-19 era from the comparison. In the 37 months after Trump was sworn in but before COVID-19, America gained 6,836,000 jobs. In the prior 37 months before Trump was sworn in, America gained 8,254,000 jobs. During the Obama Administration minus the crisis, America gained 15,929,000 jobs. Over Obama's entire administration, America gained 11,572,000 jobs. In all of these comparisons, Trump's level of job growth is well within reach of precedent.

What if you drop the COVID-19 economic slump and the early time when the active federal budget didn't yet have Trump's signature on it? America gained 5,267,000 jobs in the 28 months following Oct 2017, compared with 5,497,000 in the 28 months prior.

Any of these comparisons could also be made in percentages of jobs relative to the starting point, but that would only lower Trump's performance in every ranking. We'll spare him.

Any of these comparisons can be converted into jobs per month, which may result in a different ranking in any comparison where the block of time being compared is not consistent across the comparison, and where Trump's jobs record is not the only negative number in the set.

In the 37 months after Trump was sworn in but before COVID-19, America gained a mean of 184,757 jobs per month. In the prior 37 months before Trump was sworn in, America gained 223,081 jobs. In the 83 months from the low point of the Great Recession to Trump's swearing in, America gained 191,915 jobs per month. Over Obama's entire administration, America gained 120,541 jobs/month.

The Trump-era jobs record is not an unprecedented boom, or even up to average. In very few of these comparisons can Trump claim better than last place in the rankings. Rated: FALSE.