Jobs Report Shows How Trump's Economic Policies Have 'Flipped the Script': Analyst

And now to talk to us about the latest job support is Tim Docher, executive director at Unleash Prosperity. Tim, good afternoon. Thank you so much for joining us today in person. Yes. How are you doing in studio, Don? This is great. Hope the weather is not too cold for you. It's been a crazy same weather here that it is in D.C. So I just switched them. You know, it's all good. Well, at least the snow has melted somewhere. So that's a little sloppy out there, though. Right. Don't slip. OK, so, Tim, yeah, it appears to be good news. I don't know. I'll hear from your expert analysis. One hundred thirty thousand jobs added in January. And this is much higher than what economists, analysts were expecting. They were only expecting around 70,000 jobs to overtake. So how's the labor market doing? Yeah, it's it's it's strong at this point. And if you take a look at it compared to where we were last year, not only are jobs growing, but it's in the right area. This time last year, we actually had positive growth in government jobs and negative growth in private sector jobs compared to this year, where we now completely flip the script, where we now have, you know, one hundred thirty thousand one hundred thirty thousand private sector jobs compared to actually negative negative government job growth over the last year. This is a huge deal because President Trump came in saying we're going to shrink the size of federal government. We're going to we're going to continue to grow the private sector. And we're seeing that not only here in the job market, but with GDP and also with wage growth outpacing inflation in this report. Fantastic. Right. And I just want to point out and economic adviser Kevin Hassett was also talking about this earlier in our report. He was saying this is despite the fact that the labor market could be shrinking somewhat potentially due to deportations of illegal criminals and immigrants. So some of the jobs added in the private sector, like health care, social assistance and construction, we're driving that growth, not government jobs, as you pointed out, actually went down. Right. So speaking overall, how is the condition of the health of the U.S. economy right now? Well, I think it's good. And if you look across the board, some of the categories that have been added, you know, we've seen some loss in manufacturing jobs over the last year. We had positive growth in manufacturing, about 5000 manufacturing jobs. We saw positive growth in mining jobs. We saw positive growth, about 33000 construction jobs. These are all signs that the one big, beautiful bill is working to exactly what they were hoping, which was we're going to unleash capital. We're going to cut those rates for businesses, and they're going to invest that and continue to grow their footprint, grow their their production. And so, look, yes, we are seeing, you know, people getting older. We about 1% of our working age population is going to turn 65 each year going forward, and that's not good. However, we're seeing through A.I. and all other sorts of innovation that we're still being productive. You look at the GDP numbers. We're still producing a crazy amount, even though some of those jobs are not being filled. So it really is a good story. And I think that you're seeing the policy in D.C. meet this moment. Yeah. And we didn't even mention the unemployment rate taking down right to four point three percent and wage growth consistent about three point seven percent year over year. You mentioned the big, beautiful bill has the effects of that completely kicked in so far. No, it hasn't. In fact, that's the that's the amazing part of this. Now, they did kind of make it retroactive to the start of 2025. But we're expecting as we start to see the withholding tables, you know, kick kick in for for individuals. We start to see that they're going to start to see more money in their paycheck. You're going to start to see businesses continue to make those capital investment purchases moving forward here. And there's going to be a snowball effect. And that's exactly what happens when you cut taxes. People can predict this. People thought that their taxes were going to go up at this year. They didn't think that we were going to pass the one big, beautiful bill. So now that businesses are planning, Don, it's really kind of rocket boosters. Right. And don't forget about no tax on tips. No tax on overtime. Think about this overtime. Look, we talk about productivity. When you start to say no tax on overtime, that incentivizes people to work longer, which means that makes it more productive. You stay longer at the factory. We produce more. We get more out the door without having to worry about some of those shortfalls. And again, I'm not saying that we don't need to continue to bring more people in to fill these jobs. You can't grow the economy without an immigrant population that's legally here. You just can't do it the way we want to grow it. So you got to have that. But you do have to meet this moment with innovation. And I think those those are the research and development tax credits, the capital expenditure tax write off. These are all ways that companies are using to continue to be as productive, to continue to be even more profitable and. So on that note, compare for us Trump's economy with previous administration. Well, look, when you well, let's just take a look at Biden. Biden was a top down look. It was all in Washington. There was there was a regulatory burden that empowered agencies to use crazy things like climate change to determine whether or not a company could actually build something. They could build that addition that they had. They had to pay massive fines or they had to pay, you know, for permits. That's all leaving. You have about 131 regulations being removed for every one that's added. That's a different posture from Washington, D.C., Don. And so you're you know, you have that change. And Trump is also, again, like we said, Trump said, we're not going to let that tax rate lift like every single Democrat voted to do. They voted against the one big, beautiful bill. So they voted for a four trillion dollar tax hike. Tell me what that's going to do to the economy, raising taxes by four trillion dollars on working people. It ain't going to be good. And so I think that might be the start, the most stark contrast that we've seen. What about rebalancing trade and bringing back manufacturing through tariffs? What's the impact of that? Well, I think that the trade deals now, Don, you know me. I'm not a fan of tariffs. I think tariffs are a tax on consumers. They lead to consumers eventually. Now, what we've seen, though, is that we haven't seen high tariffs for a long term. We've seen them used as a carrot and stick to make countries open up their markets toward us, which means now we can sell beef. Now we can sell automobiles. Now we can sell things that are really, really productive here in America where we couldn't before because Trump used the threat of tariffs. And so I think that that has really those deals have really, really helped kind of, you know, put it put on rocket fuel. Some of this growth that we're seeing and some of the ability now to access those new markets. OK, so let's say that the effects of the big, beautiful bill takes in. Now, they are kicking in. They are kicking fully, fully. That is fully. And then manufacturing jobs come back. Where do you see the U.S. economy headed in the next couple of years? Well, I think they will come. I think they will come back. And I think that we'll hire and we'll figure out what it's going to be like to merge A.I. in with a with a human workforce. And let me tell you something. There is space for everybody in this. I mean, every single study that you see that's produced on is saying that there will actually be more jobs needed because of A.I. There'll be more jobs needed in manufacturing to to staff and to keep things going. Look, you got to see the economy is is we can't envision just how big it can get if there's just there's no limit. We have the ability. We are the ultimate resource. And so there will always be a place for more manufacturing jobs, for more construction jobs, for more truckers, for for every single aspect of this done. We have to see the world that way. And I think President Trump sees that. And you're seeing that through his policies. You think we can reach five percent GDP growth? One percent. I think you saw Trump the other day said we can do we can do 16 with Larry Kudlow. And Larry said, that's a pretty high number, Mr. President. But he just sees the world that way as we are the ultimate resource. We are the ultimate ability. We are our own limitation. And so that's why we always talk about wanting to get Washington, D.C. bureaucrats who aren't really making anything. We want to get them out of the way and enable the the business owner who has a vision and a dream who doesn't see the world. And oh, can we make it five percent? But sees it and we can make it whatever we say it is. All right, Tim. Sounds good. That's America. That's America. You're right. Good to talk to you today. Good to be here.