Fox Business’ Charles Payne was “nearly in tears” Friday after the Labor Department’s latest jobs report fell “far short of expectations,” independent journalist Aaron Rupar said.
“The rate of growth has slowed dramatically, and that just exacerbates this inflationary situation because gasoline is up, but the rate of growth of your wages is not,” a solemn-looking Payne said on Fox Business. “It gets back again to policy.”
According to the Labor Department, 29,000 jobs were added to the U.S. economy in September, far below the 84,000 analysts were expecting. The unemployment rate increased from 4.1% to 4.2%, and job numbers for August and July were revised to show “60,000 fewer jobs than previously reported.”
As noted by countless critics, the jobs report will be the last such report before the midterms, with MeidasTouch Editor-in-Chief Ron Filipkowski predicting outrage from President Donald Trump over the report’s findings.
“Who does Trump fire this time after the latest terrible jobs report? The person who did the math?” Filipkowski asked in a social media post on X.
Retired U.S. Air Force Col. Moe Davisjoked that the report had ushered in “Trump’s Golden Shower Age,” a tongue-in-cheek reference to Trump’s frequent claims that the United States is experiencing a “New Golden Age.”
“It's another weak jobs report,” wrote Nebraska historian Dennis P. Crawford in a social media post on X. “In contrast, the economy created 256,000 jobs in December 2024. Trump promised an economic boom beginning on day one. Where is it?”
CNBC called the jobs report a “big miss,” CNN said the report “came in surprisingly cold,” and activist, author and former Wall Street executive Amy Siskind laid the blame squarely at Trump’s feet.
“Another bad jobs report and revisions for lower hiring over the summer. This is the Trump era,” Siskind wrote in a social media post on X.
Fox Business host Charles Payne is nearly in tears over the terrible jobs report 😭 pic.twitter.com/Lv0RR3Sfyd
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 2, 2026