by Mary Margaret Olohan
President Donald Trump’s campaign celebrated the United States’ booming economy while bashing the chaos of the Iowa caucuses.
The U.S. economy added 225,000 jobs in January, while the unemployment rate rose slightly to 3.6%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics report — about 80,000 more jobs than were added in December. These job numbers smashed predictions: economists had predicted that 163,000 jobs would be added and that the unemployment rate would remain at 3.5%.
Trump campaign deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews celebrated the news and contrasted the booming economy to the chaos of this week’s Iowa caucuses, which began Monday night.
“The Trump economy is strong and still growing,” Matthews told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “January’s jobs report shows unemployment near historic lows, workers coming off the sidelines, and wages rising.”
“While the Democrats are stumbling through caucus results in Iowa, President Trump continues to deliver a booming economy for working Americans,” Matthews added.
Full results for the caucuses did not come in until Thursday evening after a series of technical issues with the results system delayed the caucus results for days.
Democratic National Committee chairman Tom Perez called on the Iowa Democratic Party Thursday to recanvass its caucus results, tweeting, “Enough is enough.”
Enough is enough. In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.
— Tom Perez (@TomPerez) February 6, 2020
“In light of the problems that have emerged in the implementation of the delegate selection plan and in order to assure public confidence in the results, I am calling on the Iowa Democratic Party to immediately begin a recanvass.”
The unemployment rate has held steady between 4% and 3.7% for more than a year, before the April jobs report showed it drop to 3.6%. Prior to April’s report, the consistent unemployment rate suggested that workers are jumping back into the workforce to fill open jobs, rather than the workers who are currently collecting unemployment welfare.
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Mary Margaret Olohan is a reporter for the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Background Photo “Iowa State Fair” by Phil Roeder. CC BY 2.0.
