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- President Donald Trump posted a chart containing job data hours early.
- Trump posted the chart on Truth Social Thursday night.
- The December jobs report was not publicly released until Friday morning.
President Donald Trump offered an early look at the closely held December jobs data.
Trump posted on Truth Social at 8:20 pm ET on Thursday a chart that included unreleased figures. Prior to Friday’s report, the totals for private and public sector jobs would not have been the same as the ones included in the chart.
On Friday morning, economists were able to connect the dots following the release of the December jobs report to the public.
The US added 50,000 jobs in December, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly report. The increase was less than expected. The unemployment rate dropped to 4.4%.
Truth Social/Business Insider
Historically, presidents are briefed a day ahead of the report’s publication. By protocol, the president and White House staff are not supposed to comment on the report until it is released.
Economist Justin Wolfers called the episode “unprecedented.”
“No White House has ever before leaked such important market-moving numbers,” Wolfers, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, wrote on X. “No serious country does this.”
A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Trump had a similar episode during his first term. In 2018, Trump touted jobs numbers an hour before the report’s release. Economists criticized the president at the time, though the White House said Trump had done nothing untoward.
“I don’t think he gave anything away, incidentally,” Larry Kudlow, the chairman of the National Economic Council, said in 2018. “I think this is all according to routine, law, and custom.”
