MS NOW⁠95%

Job growth improved in March, following a sharp decline in February ⁠73%

By Steve Benen⁠95%

4/3/2026, 12:52:21 PM

BS Summary: This article contains 22 faulty reasoning types, including Ambiguity (Equivocation), Recency Bias, and Hindsight Bias, with Biased Writer Voice as the most egregious example at 27.8% saturation with 94 hits. Analysis detected 873 faulty-reasoning hits from 338 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 65.2% and a BS Rank of ⁠73% (5,806 of 21,180 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 72.60% of the article peer group.

Expectations heading into this week showed projections of about 59,000 new jobs being created in the United States in March. 
As it turns out, according to the new report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the totals exceeded those expectations. 
CNBC reported: 
Nonfarm payrolls rose a seasonally adjusted 178,000 during the month, a reversal from the 133,000 decline in February and better than the Dow Jones consensus estimate for 59,000, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday. 
February’s number was revised down by 41,000 while January was revised up by 34,000 to 160,000, putting the three-month average around 68,000. 
With job creation higher, the unemployment rate edged lower to 4.3%. 
It’s worth emphasizing for context that a major nursing strike in California and Hawaii depressed payrolls in February by tens of thousands of jobs, and now that those labor disputes have been resolved, those now count as new jobs in March. 
Still, 178,000 is a good overall number. 
Indeed, though the data will be revised in the coming months, the preliminary totals suggest that March showed the best job growth of Trump’s second term, though the 178,000 jobs falls short of the 237,000 jobs created in December 2024 — the last full month of Joe Biden’s term. 
All told, the U.S. economy has added 321,000 jobs over Donald Trump’s 15-month second term. 
Over the previous 15 months, the economy added roughly 1.9 million jobs. 
While March’s totals are certainly a step in the right direction, the overall picture still reflects a stunning reversal, which the Republican administration has made no credible effort to explain or justify. 
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. 
It remains to be seen whether the president responds to the trend by firing the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (again). 
This post updates our related earlier coverage. 
Article reasoning-pattern comparisonThis article: 5.9%Steve Benen: 10.5%MS NOW: 7.5%Confirmation Bias5.9%This article: 10.4%Steve Benen: 1.6%MS NOW: 1.2%Anchoring Bias10.4%This article: 11.8%Steve Benen: 3.7%MS NOW: 3.7%Availability Heuristic11.8%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.9%MS NOW: 1.1%Representativeness Heuristic0.0%This article: 21.3%Steve Benen: 1.9%MS NOW: 1.3%Hindsight Bias21.3%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.1%MS NOW: 2.6%Overconfidence Bias0.0%This article: 10.9%Steve Benen: 23.0%MS NOW: 15.5%Framing Effect10.9%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: 2.1%Steve Benen: 1.3%MS NOW: 2.4%Optimism Bias2.1%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.1%MS NOW: 3.2%Pessimism Bias0.0%This article: 11.5%Steve Benen: 29.0%MS NOW: 19.3%Negativity Bias11.5%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 2.1%MS NOW: 2.4%Self-Serving Bias0.0%This article: 9.5%Steve Benen: 4.7%MS NOW: 3.1%Fundamental Attribution Error9.5%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: 3.2%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: 4.4%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: 24.6%Steve Benen: 2.9%MS NOW: 1.8%Recency Bias24.6%This article: 5.0%Steve Benen: 0.8%MS NOW: 0.6%Primacy Effect5.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.2%Blind-Spot Bias0.0%This article: 9.5%Steve Benen: 7.8%MS NOW: 4.7%Ad Hominem9.5%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.6%MS NOW: 1.3%Straw Man0.0%This article: 16.3%Steve Benen: 6.3%MS NOW: 5.4%Appeal to Authority16.3%This article: 6.8%Steve Benen: 1.6%MS NOW: 2.2%False Dilemma6.8%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: 0.0%Steve Benen: 8.9%MS NOW: 8.1%Hasty Generalization0.0%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: 11.5%Steve Benen: 11.3%MS NOW: 9.8%Appeal to Emotion11.5%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.5%MS NOW: 2.4%Begging the Question0.0%This article: 3.3%Steve Benen: 3.3%MS NOW: 3.2%Post Hoc (False Cause)3.3%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.8%MS NOW: 0.6%Tu Quoque0.0%This article: 13.9%Steve Benen: 1.4%MS NOW: 0.9%Burden of Proof13.9%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.0%MS NOW: 0.1%Appeal to Nature0.0%This article: 3.6%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.3%Composition/Division3.6%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 2.0%MS NOW: 2.6%Anecdotal0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.2%No True Scotsman0.0%This article: 26.6%Steve Benen: 1.9%MS NOW: 1.7%Ambiguity (Equivocation)26.6%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.0%MS NOW: 0.0%Gambler’s Fallacy0.0%This article: 2.1%Steve Benen: 0.1%MS NOW: 0.1%Middle Ground2.1%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: 0.0%Steve Benen: 3.8%MS NOW: 2.5%Unattributed Quote0.0%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 2.6%MS NOW: 1.5%Quote-first Misdirection0.0%This article: 27.8%Steve Benen: 22.9%MS NOW: 14.2%Biased Writer Voice27.8%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 1.4%MS NOW: 2.1%Indoctrination0.0%This article: 9.5%Steve Benen: 8.6%MS NOW: 5.3%Politically Left Leaning Bias9.5%This article: 14.5%Steve Benen: 0.6%MS NOW: 0.6%Politically Right Leaning Bias14.5%This article: 0.0%Steve Benen: 0.2%MS NOW: 0.4%Attempt to Sell a Product or S…0.0%

338 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers17%attributed speech281writer words
Voice mapSelect a segment to jump to its words
Writer's voice • 11 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 20 words • 0.0% coverageBureau of Labor Statistics • 20 words • 0.0% coverageCNBC • 2 words • 0.0% coverageBureau of Labor Statistics • 35 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 22 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 11 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 41 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 7 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 49 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 15 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 12 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 32 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 17 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 14 words • 100.0% coverageWriter's voice • 23 words • 0.0% coverageWriter's voice • 7 words • 0.0% coverage
100%flagged-word coverage
55 attributed words96% of attributed speech83% writer coverage
0%17.5%35.0%Biased Writer Voice-33.5 ptsWriter: 33.5%Bureau of Labor Statistics: 0.0%0.0%Politically Right Leaning -17.4 ptsWriter: 17.4%Bureau of Labor Statistics: 0.0%0.0%Politically Left Leaning B-11.4 ptsWriter: 11.4%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.