Employment is up since President Donald Trump took office. But the surface numbers actually hide just how good the Trump economy has been for American workers.
Overall, the number of employed people in the United States has increased by 1.5 million since January of this year. But that topline number includes both foreign-born and American-born workers.
When you look at just American-born workers, the Trump job boom is even better. Over 2 million more American-born workers are working today than were working in January. Meanwhile, the number of foreign-born workers with jobs has actually fallen by more than 500,000.
Contrast Trump’s American-born worker boom with President Joe Biden’s record. Now, when Biden first took office, the economy was already recovering from the COVID lockdowns, but it hadn’t fully recovered yet. Overall, between January 2021 and January 2025, the economy added almost 14 million jobs. But most of those jobs added were only people coming back to work. The number of employed people in the United States didn’t match the pre-covid peak until July 2022, at 159 million.
Since then, the Biden economy added almost 3.3 million jobs, but only 189,000 of them went to American-born workers. The remaining 3.1 million new jobs under the Biden economy all went to foreign-born workers.
The Biden economy was great…for foreigners. But the Trump economy has been great for American workers.
Not only have over 2 million American workers gained jobs since Trump took office, but over that same time period real wages are up while inflation is down.
TRUMP’S DEPORTATIONS ARE WORKING
While a case could be made that the economy might be even stronger if Trump had a more consistent tariff policy, there is no doubt his policies have reduced the deficit so far. And his mass deportation policies are working too.
With even more tax cuts around the corner, the Trump economy is only going to get better.