Editorial illustration
The jobs numbers are in, and they’re blowing past expectations for the third straight month. The economy added 172,000 jobs in May, pushing the three-month moving average to 188,333 positions created monthly. That’s not just good, it’s historically unprecedented this deep into an economic expansion. Six years after the pandemic recession bottomed out, job growth at this pace has only happened three other times in the postwar era: during the late Reagan boom, the 1990s dot-com explosion, and the post-financial crisis recovery.
What’s driving this surge? It’s not government bloat, that’s for sure. Federal payrolls have shrunk by 275,000 compared to a year ago, down 346,000 from their October 2024 peak. The foreign-born labor force has also contracted by 94,000 over the past year, with 107,000 fewer foreign-born workers employed. This isn’t an economy propped up by cheap imported labor or Washington make-work programs. This is private enterprise, reprivatized and re-Americanized, generating real growth that benefits American citizens.
The manufacturing sector is where the real story unfolds. Weekly real wages for durable goods workers have climbed 3.5 percent, a pace not seen consistently since the post-war boom of 1947 to 1969. For context, real weekly wage gains averaged a pathetic 0.2 percent annually in the decade before the pandemic. Factory workers are seeing their paychecks grow at rates that actually outpace inflation, something that seemed impossible during the decades of managed decline.
Nominal weekly paychecks in manufacturing are up 7.4 percent year-over-year, with hourly pay rising 5.3 percent. Overtime hours have jumped from 3.7 to 4.0 hours per week, meaning more opportunities for workers willing to put in extra time. And thanks to the One Big Beautiful Bill’s overtime tax cut, those extra hours translate into even more take-home pay than the gross figures suggest.
The naysayers at the Financial Times ran a headline this week claiming Donald Trump’s pledge to unleash a “golden age” of US manufacturing “sputters.” Sputters? Real durable goods output grew at a 5.8 percent annualized rate in the first quarter, and productivity surged at a 5.5 percent annualized rate. American factory workers are generating dramatically more value per hour, making these wage gains sustainable rather than inflationary. The only thing sputtering is the establishment media’s ability to acknowledge good news when it comes from the wrong administration.
Perhaps most remarkably, these worker gains aren’t coming at the expense of corporate profits. In the broader nonfarm business sector, labor’s share of output actually fell to its lowest level ever recorded, going back to 1947. That means workers are getting paid more while businesses remain profitable enough to reinvest in expansion, equipment, and future growth. It’s the kind of win-win scenario that economic textbooks say shouldn’t be possible, yet here we are.
The household survey and payroll survey, which often tell conflicting stories, are finally agreeing. Both show solid employment growth, falling unemployment, and fewer job losers. When even the statistical measures stop arguing with each other, you know something real is happening.
This is what a policy environment that prioritizes American workers looks like. Enforcement at the border means less competition from illegal labor. Tax cuts on overtime mean workers keep more of what they earn. Regulatory restraint means businesses can invest with confidence. The formula isn’t complicated, it just requires the political will to put American interests first.
The legacy media spent years telling us that low-hire, low-fire was the best we could hope for, that stagnant wages were the new normal, that manufacturing was gone and never coming back. They were wrong. The Golden Age isn’t a campaign slogan, it’s showing up in paychecks across the heartland.
About The Author
