U.S. economy adds 223,000 jobs, after Trump tweets controversial preview


The Labor Department reported Friday that U.S. employers added 223,000 nonfarm jobs in May, more than expected. Economists polled by MarketWatch had predicted a gain of 200,000 jobs. The continued strong hiring helped bring down the unemployment rate from 3.9 percent to 3.8 percent, an 18-year low. The yearly rate of pay gains rose to 2.9 percent from 2.8 percent. Just over an hour before the numbers were released, President Trump tweeted: "Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning." Washington Post White House economic policy reporter Damian Paletta said Trump's teaser was "the first time a president had ever sent a signal to investors about what the jobs numbers might look like an hour before they came out." Former Obama White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee tweeted that in doing so, Trump had released "classified information."
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Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.
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