Articles

# This Is the Trump Economy: Job Growth Crushes Expectations as More Americans Work for Higher Wages

The White House
February 11, 2026

> “Today’s blockbuster, expectation-shattering jobs report proves that President Trump’s economic agenda continues to pay off. The unemployment rate fell and private sector job growth remains robust — particularly for specialty trade construction jobs as the trillions in investments secured by the President pour into American manufacturing. With new revisions showing that the Biden jobs market was even worse than expected, President Trump continues to turn the page on the Biden disaster by rightsizing federal employment to the lowest level since 1966 and turbocharging economic growth.”
> — White House Deputy Press Secretary Kush Desai

## Job growth surged in January — and the strength is in the private sector.

- The economy added 172,000 new private sector jobs and shed 42,000 government jobs — bringing the unemployment rate down to 4.3%.
  - As President Trump’s agenda takes effect, factory groundbreakings and data centers are leading to more construction jobs — with construction employment up 33,000 in January, including 25,000 new jobs in the nonresidential specialty trades (the highest monthly change in five years).
- January’s 130,000 new nonfarm jobs is the best month of job growth yet, signaling President Trump’s pro-growth policies are starting to deliver real momentum in the labor market.
- In President Trump’s second term, 615,000 private sector jobs have been added while federal employment has declined to its lowest level since 1966 — and the lowest level in recorded history as a share of the total workforce.

## As wage growth booms, Americans want to join the Trump Economy.

- Average weekly earnings for private sector employees rose 0.7% in January.
  - In President Trump’s second term, average weekly earnings have grown by 4.3% and average hourly earnings have increased by 3.7%.
- Prime-age labor force participation rose to its highest level since 2001 as more Americans come off the sidelines and enter the workforce.

## The numbers shattered expectations (again).

- In fact, the number of new jobs added in January was more than double economists’ predictions, coming in higher than nearly all economists surveyed by Bloomberg.

## The labor market under Biden was far weaker than we already knew.

- From initial release to the current estimate, job growth over Biden’s final two years was overstated by 1.9 million jobs.

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