A Friday report from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the American job market is running on fumes.

According to the BLS, the US economy added just 29,000 jobs in September, which was well below economists’ forecasts of 90,000 jobs added on the month.

Additionally, employment numbers for previous months were revised downward by a total of 60,000 jobs, and BLS now estimates that the economy posted a net loss of 10,000 jobs in July and a net gain of 133,000 jobs in August.

In a Friday social media post, economist Bill McBride noted that the economy over the last year has only created 496,000 jobs, which averages to roughly 41,000 jobs per month. For comparison, the economy created an average of 186,000 jobs per month in the last year of former President Joe Biden’s term.

Heather Long, chief economist at Navy Federal Credit Union, called the latest jobs numbers “mediocre,” and pointed out that wage growth in September posted just a 3% yearly gain.

“That’s a new five-year low,” Long remarked, “and it’s wiped out entirely by ~3.4% inflation.”

Tahra Hoops, director of economic analysis at Chamber of Progress, also pointed to wage growth failing to keep up with inflation, which she said “gives credibility to the negative consumer sentiment” expressed in recent surveys.

Kyle Moore, chief economist at The Century Foundation, said that the weak wage growth on the month doesn’t tell the full story of the stresses working-class Americans are facing because the numbers “leave out debt, all the bills families have to pay before they can spend any of their paycheck.”

“A worker with debt often can’t afford to miss a paycheck, and therefore can’t afford to quit a bad job or push for a raise,” Moore explained. “That is exactly what we see in today’s job market, with hiring stalled, the quit rate stuck at 1.9%, and wage growth falling as prices climb. Mounting debt, sluggish hiring and real wage growth, and weak social support all disempower workers.”

Moore criticized President Donald Trump and his administration for trying to spin their economic policies as successes given the current numbers.

“Until the Trump administration confronts the reality that debt is eating into workers’ gains—wage gains that are now non-existent, in real terms, for the typical worker,” said Moore, “the gulf between how this administration spins the economy and how working families actually experience it will continue to widen.”

White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett didn’t heed Moore’s advice on this matter, and continued boasting about the state of the economy during a Friday interview.

“If you look at the data from this week, it’s proving that Trumponomics is really working,” said Hassett, “and this is one reason why markets are celebrating so much.”

Kevin Hassett responds to a bad September jobs report: “If you look at the data from this week, it’s proving that Trumponomics is really working … we’re very very happy”

The Fox News host responds by saying “you’re bullish and I expected that” pic.twitter.com/bVdTFnteHc
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 2, 2026

Breyon Williams, chief economist at Groundwork Collaborative, called the weak jobs report emblematic of how the economy as a whole has performed during Trump’s second term.

“There’s a clear pattern in the Trump economy,” Williams explained. “One sector is creating most of the new jobs, unemployed workers can’t find new jobs, and Americans are seeing their paychecks eaten up by the president’s high prices. When businesses are barely hiring and raises aren’t keeping up with rising prices, it’s a stalled economy—and working families are stuck in it.”

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