Unemployment Hits 18-Year Low as Economy Gains 223,000 Jobs - Will It Be Enough to Soothe Wall Street?
WASHINGTON – More good news for the American economy: New jobs numbers show the unemployment rate is now down to 3.8 percent, the lowest it's been in 18 years.
An estimated 223,000 new jobs were created last month, even better than the 190,000 new jobs projected in recent days by economic analysts.
The last time the unemployment rate hit 3.8 percent was April 2000. However, it hasn't held steady at that low rate since the 1960s.
This could be good enough news to get Wall Street back in a positive mood after it was shaken up by news of the Trump administration imposing tariffs and subsequent threats of retaliation from some of the targeted countries.
But even with an 18-year low jobs number, President Donald Trump still managed to get criticized by some of the mainstream news media. He'd put out a tweet one hour in advance of the official announcement, writing, "Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning."
Looking forward to seeing the employment numbers at 8:30 this morning.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 1, 2018
Critics blasted him, saying that tweet was a hint that the jobless numbers would be good, and that hint could have swayed the markets. It's a tradition that presidents are informed in advance of the monthly unemployment announcement, but it's also a tradition that they avoid making that knowledge public.
Top Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow said on CNBC he thought the criticism was much ado about nothing and he doubted that the vaguely worded tweet coming out just an hour ahead of the official announcement could have had much effect.
