On Sunday, National Economic Council (NEC) Director Kevin Hassett appeared on CNN's State of the Union with host Jake Tapper. Director Hassett took the opportunity (which is why he was there) to lay down some jobs and manufacturing numbers, and yes, they are pretty good.
First, on the overall economy:
NEC Director Kevin Hassett: "If you look at the overall economy, then things are really, really booming. As an example, there are 83,000 construction workers building factories right now. That's a number that we've never seen before. Initial claims for unemployment insurance are… pic.twitter.com/yszalW0a4c
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 9, 2026
The post reads:
NEC Director Kevin Hassett: "If you look at the overall economy, then things are really, really booming. As an example, there are 83,000 construction workers building factories right now. That's a number that we've never seen before. Initial claims for unemployment insurance are the lowest they've been since World War Two."
Mr. Hassett said:
One of the things we're seeing is that these jobs numbers are getting revised left and right. You can remember over the last couple of years, there were millions of revisions and, the bottom line is, if you look at the overall economy, then things are really, really booming. As an example, there are 83,000 construction workers building factories right now. That's a number that we've never seen before. Initial claims for unemployment insurance are the lowest they've been since World War II. There are more job openings than there are unemployed workers. So, all these things have suggested that the numbers are really strong. And when it didn't come out strong, we sort of dug in, and we saw that the two things that made it negative, one of them was a reduction in government workers, it was mostly teachers at states (sic), you know, taking July off, and the other thing was that FIFA ended, and so we had a whole bunch of hospitality workers, you know, file for unemployment in July. And, so anyway, you take those two out, and you you get back to what the consensus number was, about 100,000 job creation. And the point is, if that were in isolation, I wouldn't be caring about throwing this or that on the side, because it's a special story, but the fact is, everything else is so strong, I think that it makes sense that the consensus was about right.
There's a little bit of wiggling there, but the main point seems to be valid: That the recent unemployment filing numbers reflect a major event (FIFA) suddenly ending, and yes, that will always result in a short-term increase in unemployment filings.
Then, specifically on manufacturing:
NEC Director Kevin Hassett: They typical construction or manufacturing worker in the U.S. has seen an increase, under @POTUS, of $3,000-$4,000 in salary—and under Joe Biden, it dropped about $3,000 because manufacturing was collapsing. We'll take our record over his every day. pic.twitter.com/iyequ57sCj
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 9, 2026
Mr. Hassett said:
(To Jake Tapper) Well, I disagree with your number, we'll have to follow up on email, but I just looked at the latest number, it was job creation under President Trump since January 20th, is about 880,000 jobs. But we won't argue about 800, or 500, or, you know, factually on the show right now. But the fact is, the thing that really jumps out at us, is that those are really good jobs, manufacturing jobs, they are construction jobs. The number of manufacturing jobs under Joe Biden dropped by 230,000. And the reason that matters is the intuition that, you know, candidates of both parties understand that these blue-collar jobs in construction, in manufacturing, are really high-paying jobs. So, the typical construction or manufacturing worker in the U.S. has seen an increase under President Trump of $3-4,000 in salary, and under Joe Biden, it was about negative that, it dropped about $3,000. And the reason is that manufacturing was collapsing, so the high-paying jobs were going away. And so I think we'll take our record over his every day.
This is where the economic rubber really meets the road. To have a prosperous, productive economy, we have to be once more a nation that makes things. These are leading indicators, things like factory construction, and over the months we've documented, right here at RedState, plenty of examples of new manufacturing and re-shored manufacturing. All of that is good for any nation's economy. All of that is good for America. All of that is how value is created, how wealth is created in a nation; this has been known since Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations was printed in 1776.
In summary, the manufacturing numbers and the construction numbers are the real news here. The key now will be to keep it going.
Editor’s Note: Thanks to President Trump’s leadership and bold policies, America’s economy is back on track.
Help us continue to report on the president’s economic successes and combat the lies of the Democrats. Join RedState VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member