The Department of Labor reported on Friday that the unemployment rate dropped to 4.7 percent and wages grew at a rate of 2.8 percent from the previous year in February of 2016, and President Donald Trump is beside himself with joy. He has reason to be excited, with the increase in employment in the month of February of 2017 rising another 235,000, followed by a 238,000 rise in the month of January, which is the best back-to-back rise since July. Trump was not always so effusive about the monthly DOL report.
As recently as this past December, he categorized the report as “totally fiction.” During the course of the Obama years, the administration set a new record of private sector job growth.
Starting in early 2010, the nation's jobs grew for 83 consecutive months of "positive" job growth.
Trump as a candidate for president bashed DOL monthly reports
Citizen Donald Trump took every opportunity to bash the legitimacy of the report starting with a tweet (what else?) on July 7, 2012, when he tweeted that the unemployment rate only dropped because "more people are out of labor force & have stopped looking for work." He then said the recovery was "not real" and the number was "phony."
This went on 18 more times in tweets and during speeches, consistently bashing the DOL monthly numbers. During the Friday news briefing with Sean Spicer in the James Brady Briefing Room, Spicer was asked specifically about these past tweets and comments.
Spicer responded that he asked the President that very question and said he was to be quoted very clearly: 'They may have been phony in the past, but it's very real now.' The room exploded in laughter.
Sean Spicer jokes jobs numbers "may have been phony" before but are real now. Press laughs. Lying is now embedded. https://t.co/JXpxDKBJE1
— glitterbitch shauna (@goldengateblond) March 10, 2017
Trump earlier on jobs numbers: "Phony, phony, phony"
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) March 10, 2017
Sean Spicer today: "They may have been phony in the past but it's very real now" pic.twitter.com/58leDyS8L1
'Real' jobs report showed an increase in wages
The "real" jobs report also showed an hourly wage increase for the month, up an average of 6 cents to $26.09, following a 5-cent increase in January according to the Bureau of Labor.
Since last February (2016), average hourly earnings have risen by a total of 71 cents, or 2.8 percent.
The biggest gains in February were in construction jobs (58,000 jobs created in February) thanks to one of the warmest Februarys on record. Manufacturing, private educational services, health care and mining also showed gains.
Construction jobs, in particular, were a bright spot, thanks in part to increased activity on the back of the second warmest February on record. The construction increase was the biggest in 10 years and the manufacturing increase the biggest in 3 years.