# The Trump Recession
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592
**Category:** Politics & Elections
**Tags:** trump
**Created:** [February 20, 2025, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592 "2025-02-20T20:13:47Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 17
### Author:  [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2025, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/321 "2025-08-01T21:47:12Z")
I don’t think it was mentioned _why_ Trump went ballistic on the bureau of labor statistics. Job reports from the previous months were revised down, _to an astonishing degree_.
“The stunning move came the same day that the BLS reported [a gain of just 73,000 nonfarm jobs](https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/01/jobs-report-july-2025.html)in July, below market expectations. In addition, the bureau revised the two previous months down sharply, cutting a combined 258,000 from the prior counts, putting the three-month growth rate at a paltry 35,000. It was the biggest two-month downward revision since April 2020, the early days of the Covid crisis.“
> **[Trump fires commissioner of labor statistics after weaker-than-expected jobs...](https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/08/01/trump-erika-mcentarfer-jobs-report-fired.html)**
>
> Trump accused BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer of being a political appointee who was manipulating jobs data.
Predictably, the stock market took a dive.
> **[Stock market today: Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq tank as market confidence cracks...](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/live/stock-market-today-dow-sp-500-nasdaq-tank-as-market-confidence-cracks-under-trump-tariffs-weak-jobs-data-200032947.html)**
>
> Markets are assessing the reshaped US trade landscape after Trump on Thursday laid out steep new tariffs for dozens of countries.
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2025, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/322 "2025-08-01T22:08:08Z")
I’d presume that, due to DOGE, they had trouble getting accurate numbers due to cutbacks.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they asked the White House what to do to patch in the gaps and were told to take a positive viewpoint.
Which then creates a bad impression when the numbers finally come through, that were slowed by the cuts.
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### Author:  [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2025, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/323 "2025-08-01T22:08:49Z")
> [@Moriarty](#):
>
> Predictably, the stock market took a dive
Those dives are happening suspiciously often on Fridays in recent months. Looks like somebody with a short attention span is hoping people forget by Monday what happened before Saturday.
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### Author:  [@JohnT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JohnT)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2025, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/324 "2025-08-01T22:54:42Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#):
>
> Looks like somebody with a short attention span is hoping people forget by Monday what happened before Saturday.
Nice one.
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2025, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/325 "2025-08-02T00:29:37Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#):
>
> However, GDP figures needed to know if we are in a recession come from another office, the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Firings there are also on my bingo card. Just as soon as a lower than desired GDP is reported.
> [@Moriarty](#):
>
> I don’t think it was mentioned _why_ Trump went ballistic on the bureau of labor statistics. Job reports from the previous months were revised down, _to an astonishing degree_.
Anyone think the new Director won’t revise those numbers to be back up? And half the statisticians at the Bureau won’t quit or be fired for not going along with that?
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### Author:  [@Buck\_Godot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Buck_Godot)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2025, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/326 "2025-08-02T02:31:57Z")
Also as I heard someone say on NPR, even if you alter the path of the hurricane with a Sharpie it doesn’t change the weather. When people see prices of everything going up, businesses closing they aren’t going to be fooled by rosy numbers coming from the voice of Sauron.
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### Author:  [@Pleonast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pleonast)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2025, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/327 "2025-08-02T03:00:17Z")
The funny (in the sense that we’re all going to die someday) thing is a weakening employment report is _exactly_ the data the Federal Reserve would use to justify lowering interest rates. Trump is so stupid he’s tripping over his own ego.
My initial impression of the report, before the firing, was that it was intentionally tanking the numbers to pressure the Fed. Trump is losing one-dimensional tic-tac-toe.
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### Author:  [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)
#### Post date: [August 2, 2025, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/328 "2025-08-02T03:36:11Z")
> [@Buck\_Godot](#):
>
> When people see prices of everything going up, businesses closing they aren’t going to be fooled by rosy numbers coming from the voice of Sauron.
This being exactly what bit Biden in the nut sack. Team Biden kept telling everyone that the economy was good. And, as an economist, the economy was pretty good. That said, if you’re on a budget and one-time covid inflation shock hits the supermarket, then one really doesn’t want to hear the economy is 'great.’
This time around, it aint a black swan pandemic, rather it’s ye olde self-inflicted wound. Fact is, trade wars are not easy to win, and tariff prices more or less get passed on to the consumer.
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### Author:  [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/not_what_you_d_expect)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2025, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/329 "2025-08-03T00:23:01Z")
I have started to give up some things due to cost. It’s crazy how expensive some things are right now. I’m starting to see some empty shelves too.
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### Author:  [@PhillyGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhillyGuy)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2025, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/330 "2025-08-03T00:51:36Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#):
>
> Inflation is tracked by a few different groups.
Another point I should have made: The annual inflation adjustment in Social Security benefits comes from just one agency, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Replacement of nonpartisan leadership with a good news Trumper will impact how much seniors like myself receive.
On the plus side, this should lower the deficit a bit. Also on the plus side, the social security tie-in to Trump’s BLS director firing should be useful to Democratic Party messaging.
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### Author:  [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2025, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/331 "2025-08-03T00:54:04Z")
> [@PhillyGuy](#):
>
> Replacement of nonpartisan leadership with a good news Trumper will impact how much seniors like myself receive.
>
> On the plus side, this should lower the deficit a bit.
Whew!
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2025, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/332 "2025-08-03T02:27:30Z")
Press release from Economic Policy Institute.
[https://www.epi.org/press/trumps-firing-of-bls-commissioner-is-undemocratic-and-economically-dangerous/](https://www.epi.org/press/trumps-firing-of-bls-commissioner-is-undemocratic-and-economically-dangerous/)
> [@](#):
>
> The firing of the BLS commissioner follows a week of reporting that [almost 20% of price inflation data](https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/business/bls-data-collection-cuts-cpi.html) was unable to be collected for the month of July, stemming from severe resource constraints. Between illegal firings, starving data agencies of needed resources, and now political intimidation, the U.S. looks set to run into the next economic downturn flying blind. The cost of this incompetence will be felt by working people first.
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### Author:  [@Sherrerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sherrerd)
#### Post date: [August 3, 2025, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/333 "2025-08-03T21:30:52Z")
> [@dtilque](#):
>
> Between illegal firings, starving data agencies of needed resources, and now political intimidation, the U.S. looks set to run into the next economic downturn flying blind. The cost of this incompetence **will be felt by working people first**.
Thank heavens REAL people won’t be affected!!!1!!!
/s
[My bolding; quote is from the page cited by @dtilque .]
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### Author:  [@Sage\_Rat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sage_Rat)
#### Post date: [August 6, 2025, 9:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/334 "2025-08-06T09:20:05Z")
[Remittances to Mexico](https://www.niskanencenter.org/the-1-u-s-remittance-levy-impacts-on-mexico-india/) (how much money is sent from the US-based people to Mexico-based people) appear to account for about 3.5% of the national GDP and up to 18% of the gross state product of some of the poorer regions.
As of yet, there doesn’t appear to be a notable decline in total remittances (there’s a large drop from the previous quarter but, if you zoom out, that appears to be true for Q1 in general):
> **[Mexico Remittances](https://tradingeconomics.com/mexico/remittances)**
>
> Remittances in Mexico decreased to 14268.95 USD Million in the first quarter of 2025 from 16386.60 USD Million in the fourth quarter of 2024. This page provides - Mexico Remittances - actual values, historical data, forecast, chart, statistics,...
During his first term, Trump converted asylum seekers into H-2B visa workers in order to launder them into the country without anyone catching that he was accepting dirty, nasty asylum seekers:
> **[Trump administration announces additional 35,000 seasonal worker visas | CNN...](https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/05/politics/dhs-h2b-visas)**
>
> The Trump administration is making an additional 35,000 temporary worker visas available this year, the Department of Homeland Security announced Thursday.
Plausibly, he’ll do something similar with all the people caught in blue regions and sent for deportation, delivering them instead to red zones to plow the fields.
Whether that happens under a legal work visa, or something more like chain gang labor, and whether that results in remittances remains to be seen.
Should remittances to Mexico shrink too much, too quickly, that could cause some issues and instability on the Southern border, and disruptions in supply chains. If nothing else, we’d expect that to drive up costs on goods that do make it through.
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### Author:  [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2025, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/335 "2025-09-05T20:51:33Z")
Today’s jobs reports speaks to the impending collapse of our economy. Notably, the revised numbers for June show a net job loss for that month.
> [@](#):
>
> The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reported that the U.S. added 22,000 jobs in August, well below expectations for 75,000. Employment data for June was revised to show a net loss for that month, the BLS said, though July’s figures were revised slightly higher.
>
> Taken together, the U.S. has added 598,000 jobs so far this year, compared with 1,144,000 for the first eight months of 2024. The BLS said Friday that the unemployment rate ticked higher to 4.3%, a level not seen since Sept. 2017
> **[The U.S. added just 22,000 jobs in August, confirming dramatic slowdown in...](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcna228780)**
>
> The August report is the first since Trump fired a top Labor Department official over accusations of releasing inaccurate data.
Trump, of course, blames the feds for not lowering interest rates. But they can’t do that when there’s high inflation. Newsflash: inflation is growing.
> **[Core inflation rose to 2.9% in July, highest since February](https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2025/08/29/pce-inflation-report-july-2025.html)**
>
> The PCE report today was expected to show core inflation at 2.9% and headline inflation at 2.6%.
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### Author:  [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2025, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/336 "2025-09-05T21:08:14Z")
Is he going to sack the replacement of the previous functionary he sacked when he didn’t like the results they reported?
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### Author:  [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2025, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/337 "2025-09-05T21:13:54Z")
> THE DIRECTORS OF THE FIRM HIRED TO CONTINUE THE CREDITS AFTER THE OTHER PEOPLE HAD BEEN SACKED, WISH IT TO BE KNOWN THAT THEY HAVE JUST BEEN SACKED.
Monty Python got it right.
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### Author:  [@Frodo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frodo)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2025, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/338 "2025-09-05T21:15:08Z")
As always.
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### Author:  [@robby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robby)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2025, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/339 "2025-09-05T21:18:40Z")
Great…looks like Trump’s idiotic economic policies are taking an economy that was humming along fairly well under Biden and is instead now lurching toward high inflation, stagnant economic growth, and high unemployment—in other words, classic stagflation.
Which once you get into is very difficult to correct, because if you lower imterest rates to juice the economy and create jobs in a high inflation environment you run the risk of creating runaway inflation. Like what happened in the 1970s in the U.S. or even the hyperinflation seen in Germany in the 1920s.
And the only way to counter that is to raise interest rates to levels not seen in decades—which takes discipline and will be very painful.
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### Author:  [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2025, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-trump-recession/1014592/340 "2025-09-05T21:19:33Z")
> [@robby](#):
>
> Great…looks like Trump’s idiotic economic policies are taking an economy that was humming along fairly well under Biden and is instead now lurching toward high inflation, stagnant economic growth, and high unemployment—in other words, classic stagflation.
And this time, he did it all without the help of a pandemic!
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