The Labor Department has released the employment statistics for the month of February. The best that can be said is that they are mixed. The good news is that 313,000 jobs were created during the month of February. The bad news is that was not enough to lower the unemployment rate. That rate remained mired at 4.1% for the fifth month in a row (and the number of official unemployed workers rose slightly).
Trump and the Republicans had promised that their new tax cut law would be good for the middle class. They said it would raise wages and create a massive number of new jobs. So far, neither of those things is happening. The corporations (who received massive tax cuts) are not using that new money to raise wages or create jobs. They are using it to buy back their own stocks (which raises the price of that stock and benefits their rich stockholders).
Don't expect that to change anytime soon. Tax cuts don't create jobs -- only an increase in demand can do that. The problem is that the GOP tax cuts went to the people who didn't need it (the rich and the corporations) -- not to the middle class, where it could have increased demand.
Here are the relevant unemployment statistics for February:
SIZE OF THE CIVILIAN WORK FORCE
161,921,000
OFFICIAL NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS
6,706,000
OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
4.1%
DEMOGRAPHIC BREAKDOWN OF OFFICIAL UNEMPLOYMENT
Adult men...............3.7%
Adult women...............3.8%
Teens (16-19)...............14.4%
White...............3.7%
Black...............6.9%
Asian...............2.9%
Hispanic...............4.9%
Less than HS diploma...............5.7%
HS graduate...............4.4%
Some college...............3.5%
Bachelor's degree or more...............2.3%
NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS NO LONGER INCLUDED IN OFFICIAL COUNT
1,602,000
MORE REALISTIC NUMBER OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS
8,308,000
MORE REALISTIC UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
5.13%
