Schumer rips Trump after underwhelming jobs report: He's 'failed to deliver' on his economic promises
The report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed US employers added 98,000 nonfarm payrolls for the month, far fewer than the expected 180,000 jobs, according to Bloomberg. Meanwhile, the unemployment rate fell to 4.5 %, a post-financial crisis low.
"Today's disappointing jobs number is yet another example that despite President Trump's populist rhetoric on the campaign trail that he would focus on jobs, jobs, jobs, the reality is that he is governing from the hard-right, prioritizing already-wealthy special interests over the needs of everyday Americans and as a result has so far failed to deliver on those promises," Schumer said in a statement.
"Eleven weeks into his administration, we have seen nothing from President Trump on infrastructure, on trade, or on any other serious job-creating initiative," the New York Democrat continued. "Instead, he has focused on increasing health care costs while taking away health benefits, signing resolutions benefitting big corporate special interests and polluters, and signing divisive and disruptive Executive Orders."
Schumer ended his statement by calling for Trump to join with Democrats in their economic proposals.
Earlier this week, Trump shared an Instagram post on his Twitter feed highlighting the ADP jobs report, a private survey of private sector job growth, which showed 263,000 jobs added for March.
"JOBS, JOBS, JOBS," Trump wrote.
Last month, after the BLS jobs report showed a much better result of 235,000 jobs added in the economy, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Trump no longer believed the data was "phony" or "totally fiction" any more, which he had said a number of times both prior to and after his November election.
"I talked to the president about this," Spicer responded, smiling. "And he said to quote him very clearly: 'They may have been phony in the past, but it's very real now.'"