Disaster: Biden’s Economy Created Just 235,000 Jobs in August

The U.S. economy added 235,000 jobs in August and the unemployment rate dipped to 5.2 percent, the Labor Department said in its monthly labor assessment Friday.

The median Econoday forecast of analysts was for 740,000 jobs and an unemployment rate of 5.2 percent, according to Econoday. The private payrolls report from payroll processor ADP on Wednesday, however, pointed to a much weaker number, with ADP estimating just 374,000 jobs, missing estimates for 500,000.

The August figures follow the upwardly revised 1.1 million jobs for July (revised from the preliminary report of 943,000), which was the second straight month above consensus, and an unemployment rate of 5.4 percent, which was also better than consensus. The economy added 962,000 in June (revised up from last month’s estimate of 938,000 and the preliminary estimate of 850,000) and 614,000 in May.

One note of caution: the estimate of jobs is based on data from a mid-month work week that occurred when the level of new infections was considerably lower than it is now. That could mean that the survey results, although extremely disappointing, actually overestimated the number of jobs created by not accounting for a slowdown in the second half of the month.