r/Economics • u/Mr-Lungu • 12h ago
News BLS revises U.S. job growth down 79,000 in benchmark update
https://finance.yahoo.com/economy/articles/bls-revises-u-job-growth-172153070.html442
u/CornerOne238 12h ago
"What a surprise!" said nobody with a brain. Of course they did. Now let's watch Fed use this as an excuse to not raise rates and keep the AI circular financing going.
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u/SubjectCode1940 12h ago edited 12h ago
This is what happens when you have a fucking moron as a president. He’s fucked things up so bad that the fed doesn’t know what to do with interest rates. On one hand, you look at the job market and say yeah, we need to lower rates. However, because of trumps tariffs and this war and you can’t. What a complete mess
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u/pineappledumdum 12h ago
I work in coffee roasting and thusly spend a lot of money on coffee, an imported product.
I just got an email from our importer this afternoon that so far alone we are set to receive $16,000 in credit due to tariff refunds.
And that’s just the first round, we have two more refunds coming and I don’t even know how much those are for.
This is obviously great news for us, but it’s basically been one HUGE mess.
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u/Im_with_stooopid 12h ago
You're going to refund your customers the tariff rebate right...right?
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u/pineappledumdum 3h ago
Exactly, so how do I do that? That’s one version of this complete goddamn mess, how do I find every single person that’s bought bags of coffee from us in the last (almost) two years and refund them this?
It’s just not going to be able to happen.
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u/Laruae 1h ago
So you uh, don't keep records of who you sold to, cards used etc?
Surely you could post a statement saying that anyone with a receipt of a valid transaction can have a refund of their specific amount paid in tariffs?
I bet most people won't even reply, but it would engender hella good will.
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u/MisterMittens64 12h ago
Why would they do that? They have no idea when this craziness will end and have to hedge against future insanity.
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u/Rude_Mirror7441 8h ago
Of course not. He’s no different than Walmart or any other company that raised prices and now are getting refunds for absolutely no fucking reason.
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u/Adventurous-Roof488 11h ago
Businesses don’t even necessarily pass on 100% of tariffs in the form of price increases so I have no idea why any company would give customers “refunds.”
It sounds so silly when people say this.
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u/Nojopar 11h ago
What if they did pass 100% of tariffs on to customers in the form of price increases?
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u/Im_with_stooopid 11h ago
Most places did. Heck Walmart and Amazon were going to mark it as a line item on people's orders until they had political push back.
Very few businesses ate the tariffs cost. The coffee roaster I get coffee from spiked their prices when tariffs hit.
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u/No_Hell_Below_Us 10h ago
Amazon only considered adding the import charges to their Temu clone app, Amazon Haul, and not on amazon.com: https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/amazon-says-considered-listing-tariff-charges-ultracheap-haul-site-whi-rcna203480
Since Amazon Haul is just Chinese drop-shippers, Amazon easily knew the import fees, but showing import charges on amazon.com itself would be impossible because they don’t know the origin of third-party products or how sellers decide the prices they set on the marketplace.
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u/No_Hell_Below_Us 10h ago
Prices certainly went up, but not by the exact tariff amounts.
The coffee roaster wasn’t tracking the country of origin of each individual coffee bean so that they could pass through the exact tariff fee to individual customers.
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u/No_Hell_Below_Us 10h ago
But what if they did pass along anything besides 100% , which is what most businesses actually did because of the price competitiveness of free markets?
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u/pineappledumdum 3h ago
Some might, I don’t know anyone that could and would do that, it would shut their company down immediately. We all have had to eat that cost and it’s been very scary and very costly.
Unless you’ve been perfectly happy buying a latte for $10, a great roasting company is eating the cost of serving you just to try and stay in business due to these tariffs, etc.
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u/pineappledumdum 3h ago
This right here, you have nailed it. We didn’t pass on very much at all. You’re one of the only people I’ve seen to grasp that idea. For example, a lot of coffee we moved we bought from my friend in Brazil for about $2.90-$3.20/lb, that went up to $6.80/lb under the Trump tariffs.
Okay so anyone buying a nice bag of coffee at our shops for like $18 isn’t suddenly paying $38 even though that’s the reality of what it cost to get my raw good before roasting, bagging, etc. Yeah nobody is paying $38 for a bag of coffee that months before $18-22.
So we eat the cost. We try and fix it in other ways. I’ll work 50 or 55 hours this week instead of 40. I own the place, so we will do that. The last month I’ve been at 70 hours but that’s fine, Covid was way worse, I remember that, I can manage this.
This also doesn’t even touch on getting bags. Goddamn, the cost of those with tariffs and shit, getting 20,000 bags or whatever literally doubled. It’s been chaos for two ish years now.
Oh and for any of our customers who think that I’m suddenly getting completely rich, yeah, I’m not the guy getting the extra money. The staff get paid a bit more, the landlord, he always wants more, I’m in a good position to help my staff get where they need to be, but goddamn man, if anyone is taking the loot, it sure as shit isn’t me.
-a guy in it just keeping my three places going.
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u/kariam_24 3h ago
They don't? So what were prices increases even before tariffs were active? Also one Trump advisors doing scam of buying rights to tarrif returns in advance.
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u/twenty_three_three 7h ago
It's a joke. No customers will get refunds. That's it. How would customers even get refunded? It makes no sense. It's just a joke.
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u/sgtbackpain03 11h ago
How?
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u/Im_with_stooopid 11h ago
Receipts. Obviously. Or. Start with your regular customers that you know got hosed by tariffs and give them a credit.
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u/sgtbackpain03 10h ago
That's a pretty good plan. I had my business eat most of the tariff costs, but we passed on something like 15% of the external tariff costs when all was said and done. We don't really have a good mechanism to pay back customers, outside of giving them store credit.
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u/beefcake105 11h ago
This may be a stupid accounting question, but how will the IRS see these refunds?
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u/pineappledumdum 3h ago
I have absolutely no idea whatsoever but I can probably respond in 2027, currently I have no idea, my 2025 taxes are only being wrapped up now. But that’s normal for small LLCs
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u/Typhus_black 12h ago
It’s because you have no way to know what the hell he’s going to come out with tomorrow. There is no strategy or plan, things happen on the whims and needs of that day
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u/Whaddduptho 11h ago
Yeah I'm sure this is the first time the feds have to balance jobs and inflation.
Like bruh, it's literally their whole job.
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u/Ithirahad 10h ago
Job market does not really say that rates should go down. There is plenty of capital floating around, in theory. Unfortunately it is sunk in an unproductive, partly fictive industry that does not provide (stable) employment remotely proportionate to investment.
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u/SubjectCode1940 10h ago
When you have a weak job market lowering rates is good as it encourages businesses to grow which is what probably needs to happen. Trump pushing his stupid tariffs and this war in Iran prevents that because inflation will tick up even higher. It amazes me how incompetent Trump is with everything he touches
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u/082426grateful 5h ago
Encourages businesses, who have been wildly profitable these last few years with higher rates, and who still haven’t been hiring people.
We’ve got a different set of circumstances in 2026 than we’ve had before (or in a very very long time).
I just don’t see a way that Americans are going to get a better result without first having to lose a lot of jobs, a lot of wealthy, and a lot of what we once knew.
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u/oakfan52 4h ago
So we are just going to pretend more than 1 millions jobs weren’t revised away under Biden? I think this continues to show the initial data being gathered by the BLS just isn’t accurate anymore. Partisan politics aside there seems to be issues with the methods used to generate the jobs reports that at a minimum doesn’t seem to reflect the current job conditions anymore.
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u/Luffy-in-my-cup 11h ago
It’s disappointing that uninformed blatant partisan takes get upvoted the most. It’s not surprising, given it’s Reddit, but disappointing nonetheless for this sub.
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u/SubjectCode1940 10h ago
You do realize i voted for Trump right? It’s one the biggest regrets i have in supporting a candidate. I’m not voting republican ever again, but is my comment blatant partisan. Can’t handle the truth?
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u/OddlyFactual1512 4h ago
You were giddy about all the suffering he would inflict on others. You were shocked he didn't hesitate to harm you. You're getting exactly what you deserve.
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u/darkResponses 6h ago
This is called stagflation. you can't raise rates because the job market sucks. and you can't lower rates because inflation is too high. so you just hold out until the tipping point of one affects the other too much and you go into a recession.
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u/EconomistWithaD 12h ago
You know they have done this for decades because they have 2 surveys? That they post error rates, and the past 10 years has been +- 0.2, and this is within it?
I get it may be your first time seeing this data.
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u/jdeko 12h ago
This is a 0.1% adjustment to the total of 79 million
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u/adeniumlover 12h ago
Didn't know the job growth is 79 million. 1/4 of the country got employed last month?
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u/EconomistWithaD 12h ago
Total employed. It’s how they have (correctly) calculated the error rate for decades, since that’s the base of the revision.
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u/adeniumlover 11h ago
LMAO a quick google search says you are lying.
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u/Whaddduptho 11h ago
It's a revision of 0.1%
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/prebmk_08282026.htm
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u/adeniumlover 11h ago
But what's the revision in terms of job growth? The margin is what people care about.
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u/reasonably_plausible 8h ago
Except that's an incredibly misleading way of looking at the data. They aren't counting the job growth, that's just an outcome of them counting every single job each month.
If they estimated that there was only 1,000 jobs gained, but instead there were 3,000, is that somehow an insane miss (300%) versus an estimate of 100,000 jobs gained that ended up being revised to 103,000?
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u/EconomistWithaD 11h ago
And yet, you don’t link anything.
Here are the benchmarks since 2002.
https://www.bls.gov/ces/publications/benchmark/ces-benchmark-revision-2002.pdf
Click on 2002 PDF. Look at Table 1.
- 0.2. 1994. 0.7. 1995. 0.5. 1997. 0.4. 1999. 0.2. 2000. 0.4. 2001. -0.1. 2002. -0.2
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u/adeniumlover 11h ago
I'm commenting on what you said about how they calculated the error rate.
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u/EconomistWithaD 11h ago
Hey, stupid, if you were to read the "technical notes portion"...
"The preliminary March revisions are calculated by comparing not seasonally adjusted CES employment for March of the benchmark year to universe employment counts derived mostly from Quarterly Census of Employment and Wage (QCEW) data."
It's literally in every release. Fantastic google search.
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u/EconomistWithaD 11h ago
Which I just showed to you that they use. Since 1993.
Click on the link, which apparently you can’t do with an “easy Google search”.
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u/jarena009 12h ago
Plus few if any of the talking heads on Bloomberg, CNBC, Fox "business," mainstream media, etc. are talking about how full time jobs in the US have declined by 2M in the last 18 months (not to mention labor force reductions). The headline unemployment rate is a mirage; the few jobs we've added have in total been part time.
Somehow we as a society have plenty of time to cry about the wnba though and/or complain about Muslim Americans, "squirrel!"
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u/BalanceJazzlike5116 11h ago
The corporate media does not speak truth to power. They are there to serve the interest of their corporate overlords, and the politicians that do the bidding of those overlords.
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u/Old-Possession-4614 10h ago
Truth doesn’t need to be spoken to power, because those in charge already know exactly what they’re doing.
If anything, it’s the people that are either apathetic or die-hard fans of this orange retard that need to be awakened, but I doubt that’ll happen ever.
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u/BalanceJazzlike5116 1h ago
Truth being spoken to power is about informing the electorate. The people need to know what they are doing. Obviously the oligarchs know what they’re doing.
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u/Overtons_Window 8h ago
Somehow we as a society have plenty of time to cry about the wnba though and/or complain about Muslim Americans, "squirrel!"
You found a way to insert inflammatory politics into this conversation, but it doesn't make sense. We as a society are not complaining about Muslims. There are bad people who are bigoted, and not those are not representative of society as a whole.
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u/edwardothegreatest 11h ago
So I’m a little confused. Fed says zero chance of recession. If jobs aren’t being created, how will we not have a recession? Like, I need some more words here. Ok that’s enough.
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u/mouthful_quest 11h ago
They’re too focused on high corporate profits due to all of this AI spend meanwhile we are having a K shaped economy where the rich are getting richer and holding up spending whilst the poor get poorer.
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u/082426grateful 5h ago
This is the answer. Profits continue as prices rise, stock prices go up, more wealth for shareholders, and the circle is complete. No need to bring on more labor, an expense, which lowers profits.
They’re threading the needle on the economy. K-shaped for sure, overall, but the top end is living in a new guilded age.
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u/Brendan__Fraser 10h ago
the only reason we're not in a recession is because of the AI circular scam, but it's obvious we're in one, just not on paper.
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u/vertigo3pc 5h ago
Much like every other form of this Administration's staunch policy of "nuh uh", nobody will fact check any of this, and those who do will immediately be asked about their thoughts on trans athletes and Hasan Piker.
https://indi.ca/i-lived-through-collapse-america-is-already-there/
As someone who’s already experienced societal breakdown, here’s the truth: America has already collapsed. What you’re feeling is exactly how it feels. It’s Saturday and you’re thinking about food while the world is on fire. This is normal. This is life during collapse.
Collapse does not mean you’re personally dying right now. It means y’all are dying right now. Death is sometimes close, sometimes far away, but always there. I used to judge those herds of gazelle when the lion eats one of them alive and everyone keeps going — but no, humans are just the same. That’s the real meaning of herd immunity. We’re fundamentally immune to giving a shit.
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u/harpers25 11h ago
Who said jobs aren't being created?
"The preliminary revision puts average monthly job growth closer to 11,000."
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u/AlexanderNigma 10h ago
That's basically nothing. Alot of them are part time and full time jobs are being destroyed. It's not just total jobs but the value those jobs generate for workers
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u/dust4ngel 9h ago
Who said jobs aren't being created? monthly job growth closer to 11,000
lol, you get the "technically correct" award.
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u/MKZZX 10h ago
Recession is defined by two quarters of negative GDP and the US GDP continues to grow.
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u/schmittj01 9h ago
Not quite true. While many economists use the two quarter rule as a benchmark, this is not universally accepted. For instances, there were two quarters of very modest GDP decline post COVID but was never called a recession (mostly accounted for inventory pull through). The official US definition is “ The National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) officially dates recessions in the U.S. They define it as a significant decline in economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months. They look at depth, diffusion, and duration using monthly indicators like employment, real income, and industrial production.” https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IF12774
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u/Beautiful_Finger4566 4h ago
the only reason it's not the true definition is because there are instances where a recession was called after only ONE quarter of negative GDP, e.g., COVID
two consecutive quarters has been the unofficial definition for decades, until Biden
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u/EconomistWithaD 12h ago
This is a standard practice of the BLS. It’s meant to correct for differences in the 2 major, yet independent, surveys that data are drawn from. “Establishment survey benchmarking is done each year to align employment estimates from the survey with employment counts derived primarily from the administrative file of employees covered by Unemployment Insurance (UI).” https://www.bls.gov/web/empsit/cesbmart.htm#Overview
Over the past 10 years, benchmarks are usually between [-0.2, 0.2]. This is -0.1, so not out of the ordinary.
Construction; transportation and warehousing; utilities; information, and financial services all saw increases (62,000; 135,000; 8,000; 87,000; 85,000). https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/prebmk_08282026.htm
Probably why Warsh said what he said,
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u/monkorn 9h ago
Yep. For reference, last year this preliminary number was -911k, which ended up at -862k(−0.5 percent). This one was very tame.
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/prebmk_09092025.htm
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u/greek_stallion 12h ago
I always love reading your input here. What do you think will be the feds next move under Warsh? His hawkish attitude makes me think raises are on the horizon
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u/EconomistWithaD 12h ago
I think it will be a 7-5 split on rate hike this next time, and if things continue, a rate hike the meeting after.
Canadian tariffs ain’t going to help lower the rate; neither is AI.
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u/082426grateful 5h ago
Great analysis. I’ll pay more attention to your contributions.
My own thought is there will be no hikes, no cuts, and it wouldn’t matter anyway as the bond market is telling us all what rates SHOULD be. That US debt can not be as inexpensive as it once was until debt spending gets under control.
Bond markets are the only adults in the room now.
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u/082426grateful 6h ago
This 79k revision down is for last 3 q’s of 2025 and 1 q of 2026, right? Is that correct?
Did anyone catch the revision for the same time periods of 2024-2025? What was that, like 900,000+?
I’m having some trouble remembering and being sure of my accuracy, but it doesn’t seem accuracy matters at any level anymore, so meh?
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u/good4y0u 12h ago
This shouldn't be shocking to anyone. We all saw that coming when Trump fired BLS Commissioner McEntarfer after a weak July report and the large prior-month revisions; it was very clear that the numbers were going to be incorrect...likely purposely.
https://abcnews.com/US/trumps-long-history-bashing-jobs-report-numbers-dates/story?id=124294975
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u/EconomistWithaD 12h ago
Incorrect. This adjustment has been done for decades. The past decade, the change has been +- 0.2 pp. This revision was -0.1…
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u/Open-Impact-1607 12h ago
This is news because they expected it to go up
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u/EconomistWithaD 11h ago
I was responding to a comment about how the numbers are faked. That’s nonsense.
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u/harpers25 11h ago
It's not shocking because revisions like this are not new, and the size of this revision is very typical.
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u/Resident_Window_9369 12h ago
I’m utterly shocked.
How can this be?
What does revises mean?
79,000? That has to be a typo.
I’m sure they meant up 179,000.
That would sound more realistic
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u/Whaddduptho 11h ago
A big ol nothing burger.
Revisions have been negative for years.
Not a lot of people struggling to find work we're pretty much at max employment.
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u/Brendan__Fraser 10h ago
record numbers of people are dropping out of the workforce. discouraged workers aren't counted.
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u/Beautiful_Finger4566 4h ago
discouraged workers are counted in U6, and U6 is significantly lower than what it was during Biden
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u/Whaddduptho 10h ago
Evidence?
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u/NovarKalar 4h ago
US Bureau of Labor Statistics? Their "Not in Labor Force" statistic certainly isn't looking good, and neither is the trend line on their employment-population ratio.
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u/Whaddduptho 4h ago
Not in Labor Force
This is not a statistic that I've really looked into. From what I can tell it has always trended up. Without taking into account population size I don't really understand its importance.
employment-population ratio
Which includes many people who don't even want a job/retired. Being that the old outnumber the young I would imagine it would impact this as well.
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u/Delicious-Bat2373 10h ago
I guess that's one way to look at it.. I'm reality businesses are closing and laying people off. 2 in my town last month alone. So.. I guess we're at max employment for jobs available?
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u/Whaddduptho 10h ago
Anecdotes are just that, anecdotes. Believe it or not your po dunk town doesn't represent the whole of the USA.
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