During Kevin Hassett’s latest appearance on Fox Business, the director of the National Economic Council got an earful from host Larry Kudlow about the state of the economy. (This was, incidentally, a rare instance in which the top economist in Donald Trump’s White House from his first term interviewed the top economist in Trump’s second term.)

As part of a rather animated pitch, Kudlow declared, “The unemployment rate is 4.3%, for heaven’s sakes! … That’s a boom, for God’s sake!”

Hassett nodded in agreement, before ultimately telling viewers that he, too, believes the United States has seen “an employment boom” since the president’s return to power.

There are a few things to keep in mind about misguided boasts like these.

Right off the bat, while it’s true that a 4.3% unemployment rate is, in historical terms, quite low, it’s also true that when Trump returned to the White House in January 2025, the same jobless rate was 4%. In other words, nearly a year and a half after the Republican administration got to work implementing its economic agenda, the unemployment rate has gotten worse, not better, making this an awkward subject for Trump loyalists to brag about.

If Kudlow and Hassett want to see a truly impressive unemployment rate, I might refer them to the data from three years ago at this time: In April 2023, midway through Joe Biden’s term, the jobless rate fell to 3.5%, which was the lowest since 1969. If memory serves, neither Kudlow nor Hassett seemed especially eager to celebrate the Democratic administration’s successes at the time.

What’s more, the unemployment rate isn’t the only relevant metric: According to the latest data released last week by the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. economy has added 321,000 jobs over Trump’s 15-month second term. Over the previous 15 months, however, the economy added roughly 1.9 million jobs.

A variety of words come to mind to describe such a sharp decline in the U.S. job market. “Boom” isn’t one of them.

Finally, the back-and-forth between Hassett and Kudlow seemed to miss the point entirely. If the two more recent Republican directors of the National Economic Council want to take a moment to explain why the unemployment rate has gotten worse, or why job growth has slowed so dramatically, they’re welcome to make their best pitch.

Instead, as polls show the public souring quickly on the president’s handling of the economy, the Republican economists pretended that failure deserves to be seen as success. If they hoped such happy talk would impress the American mainstream, they’re likely to be disappointed.

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