Steve Moore highlights 3 ‘very good signs’ in Trump jobs report

Economist Steve Moore highlighted three key positive indicators in the April jobs report published Friday, which exceeded economists’ expectations.

America added 177,000 nonfarm payroll jobs in April, with the unemployment holding steady at 4.2%, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data. Moore, on “Mornings with Maria,” noted the U.S. under President Donald Trump has reached an all-time high in the number of Americans working, adding that government jobs declined and labor force participation increased.

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“There’s sort of three big takeaways from this report and they’ve been mentioned, but I just want to put the headline on these: number one, a record number of Americans are working today,” Moore told host Maria Bartiromo. “Never before in American history have more Americans been working. That’s a great number.”

“Number two, what have we talked about for the last four years on this show when the job report comes out? Government — that so much of the employment was in the wrong sector of the economy,” he continued. “[Former President] Joe Biden grew the government and the private sector was basically at a standstill. It’s a positive thing when we see government employment declining and private sector employment growing. It’s about time.”

The U.S. federal government workforce fell by 9,000 jobs in April, according to the BLS. Moore connected the federal government workforce decline to the U.S. real gross domestic product (GDP) report released Wednesday, which showed GDP decreased at a rate of 0.3% in the first quarter of 2025.

“GDP fell in part because government is falling and we shouldn’t even count government as a positive thing for the economy,” Moore said.

Trump — along with Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) — has focused on cutting the federal workforce and removing waste throughout the federal government.

“The third issue I wanted to raise is labor force participation because how many times, Maria, have we talked about that over the last three or four years? Labor force participation rose in the month of April — all very good signs,” Moore concluded.

The labor force participation rate rose .1% from March, according to the BLS’ seasonally adjusted data.

“This is the second month in a row where the jobs report has beat expectations,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt wrote in a Friday statement. “Wages are continuing to rise and labor force participation is increasing. This is exactly what we want to see. More Americans working for higher wages. More winning is on the way!”

The better-than-anticipated job growth in April follows the U.S. adding 185,000 jobs in March, according to the BLS.

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