MS NOW⁠94%

Job numbers disappoint again as 2026 reaches the halfway point ⁠71%

By Steve Benen⁠95%

7/2/2026, 12:51:05 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 19 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Confirmation Bias, and Politically Left Leaning Bias, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 50.9% saturation with 145 hits. Analysis detected 799 faulty-reasoning hits from 285 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 64.3% and a BS Rank of ⁠71% (5,921 of 20,370 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 70.90% of the article peer group.

Expectations heading into this week showed projections of about 115,000 new jobs being created in the United States in June. 
As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the totals fell far short of those expectations. 
CNBC reported: 
The U.S. economy saw job creation cool sharply heading into the summer, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday. 
Nonfarm payrolls for June increased by a seasonally adjusted 57,000 for the month, slower than the downwardly revised 129,000 added in May and worse than the 115,000 Dow Jones consensus forecast. 
The unemployment rate inched lower to 4.2%, which is still low by historical standards, though it’s still higher than it was when Donald Trump’s second term began. 
Also discouraging were the revisions for April and May, which subtracted a combined 74,000 jobs from previous estimates. 
As 2026 reaches the halfway point, the U.S. economy has created 552,000 jobs so far this year — a monthly average of 92,000 — which is an underwhelming total that plainly contradicts Donald Trump’s frequent claims that the domestic economy is now the strongest it’s been in American history. 
All told, the U.S. economy has added 668,000 jobs over Trump’s 18-month second term. 
Over the previous 18 months, the economy added over 2.4 million jobs. 
To date, the White House hasn’t even tried to explain why the domestic job market worsened after the Republican president took office. 
To contextualize the data, I put together this chart to show month-to-month totals since the 2020 election. 
The blue columns point to Biden’s presidency, while the red columns point to Trump’s. 
This post updates our related earlier coverage. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 25.3%Steve Benen: 10.6%MS NOW: 7.6%Confirmation Bias25.3%This article: 15.1%Steve Benen: 1.6%MS NOW: 1.2%Anchoring Bias15.1%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.7%MS NOW: 3.7%Availability Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.9%MS NOW: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.9%MS NOW: 1.3%Hindsight Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.1%MS NOW: 2.6%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 4.9%Steve Benen: 23.2%MS NOW: 15.5%Framing Effect4.9%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.4%MS NOW: 0.7%Loss Aversion0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.8%MS NOW: 0.9%Status Quo Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.1%Sunk Cost Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.3%MS NOW: 2.4%Optimism Bias0.0%This article: 20.7%Steve Benen: 3.1%MS NOW: 3.2%Pessimism Bias20.7%This article: 50.9%Steve Benen: 29.4%MS NOW: 19.3%Negativity Bias50.9%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 2.1%MS NOW: 2.4%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 7.7%Steve Benen: 4.7%MS NOW: 3.1%Fundamental Attribution Error7.7%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.3%MS NOW: 0.3%Actor-Observer Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.4%MS NOW: 3.5%In-Group Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.3%MS NOW: 2.6%Out-Group Homogeneity Bias0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.9%MS NOW: 2.2%Halo Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 4.5%MS NOW: 1.8%Horn Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.0%Dunning-Kruger Effect0.0%This article: 9.5%Steve Benen: 2.9%MS NOW: 1.8%Recency Bias9.5%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.8%MS NOW: 0.6%Primacy Effect0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.2%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 7.7%Steve Benen: 7.9%MS NOW: 4.8%Ad Hominem7.7%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.6%MS NOW: 1.3%Straw Man0.0%This article: 14.7%Steve Benen: 6.4%MS NOW: 5.4%Appeal to Authority14.7%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.5%MS NOW: 2.2%False Dilemma0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.7%MS NOW: 2.2%Slippery Slope0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.2%Circular Reasoning0.0%This article: 17.2%Steve Benen: 8.9%MS NOW: 8.1%Hasty Generalization17.2%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.7%MS NOW: 0.7%Red Herring0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.2%MS NOW: 0.9%Bandwagon0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 11.4%MS NOW: 9.9%Appeal to Emotion0.0%This article: 17.2%Steve Benen: 3.5%MS NOW: 2.4%Begging the Question17.2%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.3%MS NOW: 3.2%Post Hoc (False Cause)0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.9%MS NOW: 0.6%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 7.7%Steve Benen: 1.4%MS NOW: 0.9%Burden of Proof7.7%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.0%MS NOW: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.3%Composition/Division0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.9%MS NOW: 2.6%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.2%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.9%MS NOW: 1.7%Ambiguity (Equivocation)0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.0%MS NOW: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 9.5%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.1%Middle Ground9.5%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.5%MS NOW: 0.3%Personal Incredulity0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.3%Special Pleading0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 2.2%MS NOW: 1.3%Genetic Fallacy0.0%This article: 0.7%Steve Benen: 3.8%MS NOW: 2.5%Unattributed Quote0.7%This article: 6.7%Steve Benen: 2.6%MS NOW: 1.5%Quote-first Misdirection6.7%This article: 25.6%Steve Benen: 22.8%MS NOW: 14.3%Biased Writer Voice25.6%This article: 4.9%Steve Benen: 1.4%MS NOW: 2.1%Indoctrination4.9%This article: 24.9%Steve Benen: 8.6%MS NOW: 5.4%Politically Left Leaning Bias24.9%This article: 9.5%Steve Benen: 0.6%MS NOW: 0.6%Politically Right Leaning Bias9.5%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.4%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

285 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers15%attributed speech241writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 10 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 20 words • 0.0% coverageBureau of Labor Statistics • 23 words • 100.0% coverageCNBC • 2 words • 100.0% coverageBureau of Labor Statistics • 19 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 31 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 27 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 18 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 49 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 12 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 7 words • 0.0% coverage
100%flagged-word coverage
42 attributed words95% of attributed speech76% writer coverage
0%27.5%55.0%Biased Writer Voice+34.0 ptsWriter: 20.7%Bureau of Labor Statistics: 54.8%54.8%Quote-first Misdirection+45.2 ptsWriter: 0.0%Bureau of Labor Statistics: 45.2%45.2%Politically Left Leaning B-29.5 ptsWriter: 29.5%Bureau of Labor Statistics: 0.0%0.0%Politically Right Leaning -11.2 ptsWriter: 11.2%Bureau of Labor Statistics: 0.0%0.0%Indoctrination-5.8 ptsWriter: 5.8%Bureau of Labor Statistics: 0.0%0.0%

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Analysis

Hover over highlighted words in the article to view the associated bias or fallacy analysis.