The jobs machine

True: Nothing can justify the reelection of a mendacious and divisive and unstable president who scoffs at the rule of law, demands loyalty over competence from his staffers and twists the arms of foreign governments to gin up investigations into his political rivals.

Also true: Under Donald Trump’s watch, American companies continued to create new jobs at a healthy clip. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a February increase of 273,000 jobs, outperforming economists’ expectations by a country mile. Unemployment fell to 3.5%, marking the sixth straight month at levels not seen since 1969. Wage growth ticked up slightly, to a still-too-low 3%.

Yes, everyone can see the looming asterisk that looks remarkably like those closeup pictures of the novel coronavirus. Yes, anyone with so much as a toe in the stock market can feel the anxiety as the Dow continues to fall, notwithstanding the Federal Reserve’s emergency rate cut this week. Yes, federal deficits and debt are spiking, as a huge and lopsided tax cut that promised to slice, dice and balance budgets fails utterly to produce enough economic activity to justify lost revenue.

You can bet a virus outbreak that’s canceling conventions and travel plans, disrupting supply chains and keeping people home from school and work will soon enough be felt in the fundamentals of the U.S. economy. But as of the end of February 2020, let the record show: America’s job market was still going gangbusters.