The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) delivered a body blow to the corporate media industrial complex’s narrative of a robust Biden economy. In its preliminary benchmark revision, the agency slashed its estimate of nonfarm employment growth from March 2024 to March 2025 by a whopping 911,000 jobs — a downward adjustment of 0.6 percent out of 159 million jobs.
Nearly lost in the BLS news report and in the major media is the fact that the revision wipes out half of the new jobs reported through Biden’s last year in office, down from approximately 1.8 million to around 900,000.
This isn’t a minor tweak; it’s proof that the job market was far weaker than the glowing headlines suggested during the Biden administration’s twilight.
For months in 2024, the Biden White House and its major media allies trumpeted “historic” job gains, painting a picture of unbreakable economic strength. They dismissed any skepticism as partisan delusion or conspiracy-mongering. Yet this huge downward revision reveals the truth: The economy wasn’t the powerhouse they claimed. Further, it was cooling well before President Donald Trump took office, with overestimation likely stemming from, at best, systemic errors in BLS surveys and, at worst, partisan bias in what’s supposed to be a neutral arm of the government.
The irony is thick — Biden’s boosters may have talked themselves into complacency, convincing the Federal Reserve that rate cuts weren’t urgent. As inflation lingered and growth sputtered, ordinary Americans paid the price.
Average folks sensed something was off. Despite the rosy jobs reports, they felt the pinch of stagnant wages, soaring costs, and a labor market that didn’t match the data and the hype. Republicans, from lawmakers to everyday voters, voiced doubts about the jobs data accuracy, only to face derision from the press. Now, with the BLS’s own numbers vindicating those concerns, it’s clear the skepticism was warranted. The job market began softening in Biden’s final months, not as a result of Trump’s policies.
Take The Washington Post, which highlighted President Joe Biden’s dismissal of Sen. Marco Rubio’s skepticism in October 2024. Rubio had called a strong jobs report “fake,” pointing to frequent downward revisions. Biden shot back, saying, “Anything that MAGA Republicans don’t like, they call fake,” framing the doubt as baseless partisanship.
The Post portrayed Rubio’s claim as false, reinforcing the narrative that Republicans were undermining credible data to score political points.
NBC framed the same exchange as Republicans rejecting positive data amid their narrative of economic weakness under Biden. Turns out Republicans were right.
The New York Times also chronicled growing distrust in BLS figures during 2024. In a September piece, the paper discussed how “political heat,” including from then former President Trump, was testing trust in economic data after revisions showed the addition of “818,000 fewer jobs in 2023 and early 2024 than initially reported.” The article noted how such scrutiny, often stoked by Republicans, contributed to public skepticism about the Biden economy’s strength.
Yet the Times implied much of the doubt was politically motivated, downplaying methodological concerns that the recent 911,000-job revision has vindicated.
The Wall Street Journal, in a September 2024 op-ed, critiqued the Biden administration’s manufacturing job claims as overhyped, noting that despite boasts of 800,000 new jobs, the sector’s growth lagged behind overall employment trends. While the Journal was more sympathetic to economic critiques, it highlighted how Republicans questioned the data’s rosy portrayal, often facing accusations of pessimism from Biden allies. BLS’s revision for manufacturing showed 95,000 fewer manufacturing jobs than reported in 2024, a drop of 0.8 percent.
ABC News, in an August 2025 “fact-check” that referenced 2024 claims, debunked assertions by Trump and Republicans that jobless numbers were “rigged” to favor Biden-Harris. The network portrayed such doubts as unfounded, repeating the official line from team Biden that skeptics were spreading misinformation to undermine the administration’s economic record.
And CBS News, reporting on economic polls in 2024, noted voter skepticism about Biden’s job growth claims, with many Americans rating the economy poorly despite official data. In coverage of the November election, CBS highlighted how Republicans’ doubts about inflated numbers were dismissed as conspiracy theories by Democrats, even as the public disconnect grew.
And the day after Donald Trump’s 2024 win, a Washington Post headline expressed the frustration they shared with Democrats: “Voter anger over economy boosts Trump in 2024, baffling Democrats.” The Post added that “exit polls reflect public frustration about the state of the economy under Democrats, who blame social media, the press and bad luck.”
These major outlets consistently portrayed Republican and public doubts as fringe or politically driven, even as everyday Americans grappled with a disconnect between headlines and reality. The BLS revision now confirms what skeptics argued: The Biden boom was vastly overstated.
As Trump steers the economy forward, this episode underscores the dangers of media echo chambers. They not only misled the public but may have delayed needed policy shifts, like Fed rate cuts. Americans deserve transparency, not gaslighting.
