Why The Jobs Report Doesn't Tell Us The Truth About The Economy

Forbes

2 days ago

The May jobs report held steady at 4.2 percent. Black unemployment remained over 6 percent. That 4.2 percent headline rate? It hides more than it shows. Forbes points out that while job growth looked solid, the government quietly revised earlier numbers down. The real story is slower, shakier. June's data is due July 3, just ahead of the Fourth of July holiday, and few expect surprises. Meanwhile, the Trump administration tried to shut down Job Corps, a federal program that trains low-income youth. A judge blocked the move, but the attempt speaks volumes. These numbers often leave out who gets hit first and helped last.
People fill out questionnaires as they line up to try for jobs at the City University of New York's ... More Big Apple Job Fair March 20, 2009 at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York. An estimated 6,000 students and alumni showed up to apply for jobs overed by about 100 employers. AFP PHOTO/DON EMMERT (Photo credit should read DON EMMERT/AFP via Getty Images)
Every month, the jobs report drops. Cable news lights up. Economists chime in. Politicians spin. Somewhere, in a newsroom, a business reporter tries to explain it all in under three minutes.
For years, the U.S. unemployment rate has been treated as the economy's most important number. It leads headlines and drives markets. But the more you report on it, the clearer it becomes: that number hides more than it reveals. The Bureau of Labor Statistics puts out a careful, well-constructed report. But it's built on averages. It smooths over gaps that matter. That gap shows up in the data. Forbes breaks down how one survey shows job gains while another shows losses. It's not a glitch. It's a warning. Gig workers, undocumented workers, people working multiple jobs, and people who've given up looking for work—they're often missing from the headline. So are questions of pay, stability, and dignity.
Jobs Day hits every first Friday at 8:30 AM Eastern, and the jobs number—6.1, 4.9, 3.7—gets treated like a verdict, not an explanation. The jobs report is based on a survey of 60,000 households. It only covers a specific week in the month, and it excludes a lot. The Labor Force Participation Rate, for example, is often overlooked. That number tells us who's working or actively looking—not just who has a job. Underemployment, long-term joblessness, and wage stagnation are also rarely part of the headline. Even the "quits rate," which shows how confident workers are to leave jobs, gets buried.
What the Jobs Numbers Don't Tell You
Black unemployment often remains nearly double that of white workers, and many impacted groups receive little attention in coverage. Large parts of the workforce see little change during periods labeled "growth." Editors and reporters may not always ask why. The sound bite comes fast. The story moves quickly. But these patterns deserve more space and context.
UNITED STATES - NOVEMBER 11: On the TV set with Maria Bartiromo as she tapes a "Wall Street ... More Journal" Show at the CNBC Studios, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey., (Photo by Bill Stahl Jr./NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)
What we choose to measure reveals what we pay attention to. If we only ask how many people are working, we miss what kind of work they're doing, what they earn, and what they give up to keep those jobs. That number still drives coverage. It often flattens the story to a single digit. A number that doesn't speak to quality, stability, or power. The same gaps show up every month. Black workers are hit hardest during downturns and benefit least during recovery. The unemployment rate can fall while wages stay flat. Coverage tends to follow the topline number, not the full picture.
Ask different questions, you get different answers. Who's underemployed? Who's working part-time when they want full-time? Who's been out of the labor force so long they've stopped being counted? The Black unemployment gap isn't just persistent. It's structural. The unemployment rate among Black men in America has hovered at or above 10 percent for most of my adult life. That reflects deep disparities in access and opportunity.
Ask Different Questions, Get Better Answers
The topline number fits neatly in a headline, but it doesn't say what kind of jobs people are getting. In past reports, wages grew for some workers, but not all. Industries like hospitality and retail showed hiring gains, but those gains often came with lower pay and fewer benefits. That's a detail that rarely makes it to air. The rise in gig and contract work has also gone underreported. For many, it's become harder to find jobs that include health care, retirement, or even guaranteed hours.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 12, 2018: A group of laborers take a break from their work in ... More the Union Square public plaza in San Francisco, California. (Photo by)
It's worth asking what these numbers do—and don't—tell us about the people they describe. In May 2010, the national unemployment rate was 9.3 percent. For Black workers, it was 15.8. For Hispanic workers, 12.4. For white workers, 8.7. Those gaps didn't just close overnight. Even when jobs came back, they didn't come back evenly. The recovery arrived on paper before it showed up in people's lives.
The stock market isn't the economy. And the jobs report isn't either—not for most people.
What counts as 'progress' depends on where you're standing. For many people of color, the economic crisis never really ended. It just got redefined. And each time the monthly report hits, we're reminded of that gap between measurement and meaning.
The story of the economy should track more than recovery—it should track reality. We still don't have a good system for tracking underemployment. There's no clean number for job quality. No single metric can capture what it means to string together temp work, or drive for two apps, or work full time without paid leave. But those are all parts of the real economy, and they show up in the lives of real people. The way we count should reflect that.
Month after month, the story doesn't change. The same thing happens every month. The unemployment number comes out. The cable news shows light up. The number is low. The president takes a victory lap. The story moves on. And yet, if you dig into the numbers, the reality isn't moving at all. These reports can't explain what it means to be counted or not counted. The unemployment number often obscures the life behind the statistic. It doesn't account for the dignity of the job, the stability of the paycheck, or whether a person is working three part-time jobs just to stay afloat.
WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 07: U.S. President Donald Trump delivers remarks on the jobs report from the ... More Oval Office at the White House on March 07, 2025 in Washington, DC. The U.S. economy added 151,000 jobs, with the unemployment rate rising slightly to 4.1%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. (Photo by)
The Jobs Report Isn't Built to Reflect Everyone
This isn't just about differences between groups. It's about how we define work. The labor force participation rate is key. That number includes those who are working or actively looking. But if someone stops looking? They disappear from the count. That's how you lose whole neighborhoods in the data.
Reporting on the jobs report can follow familiar patterns. I've been in newsrooms where editors assign the story before the data comes out. The angle is set. The quote from the White House is slotted in. The nuance gets edited out. That kind of routine can miss what really matters. If you're unemployed or underemployed, the number on a screen might not line up with your day-to-day life. People don't experience the economy in percentages. They experience it in rent. In groceries. In hours worked and time lost.
We can start by asking more grounded questions. What kind of jobs are people getting? Can they support a family? Can workers take a sick day without risking their paycheck? Can they get home in time to help their kids with homework? These are not abstract ideas. They are the daily terms of economic survival. The monthly release will keep coming. But if the story stops at the headline number, we miss the reality behind it.
This piece appears in Vanilla is Black, my newsletter about race, business, and American contradictions and listen to my audio reporting at Sonari.store.