For almost a week, the January jobs report sat in a drawer at the Department of Labor like a Christmas present nobody was allowed to open. Delayed from its scheduled February 6 release, the anticipation built. Economists made their predictions. The media pre-wrote their “Trump economy stumbles” drafts. Everyone got comfortable.

Then the numbers dropped, and the drafts went in the trash.

The Numbers

130,000 non-farm jobs. 172,000 total private jobs. Nearly double what one poll of economists projected. Unemployment at 4.3% — a tick below the expected 4.4%. Not earth-shattering on their own, but when the expert class tells you to expect a mediocre report and reality comes back swinging, the gap between prediction and performance is the story.

Yes, the Department of Labor revised November and December down by a combined 17,000 jobs. That’s worth noting. Revisions happen. But the headline number beat expectations by enough to make the doomsayers look silly, which at this point is basically a monthly tradition.

Trump’s response was pure Trump: “GREAT JOBS NUMBERS, FAR GREATER THAN EXPECTED!” Followed by a pivot to interest rates, bond yields, and a claim that the U.S. should be paying “the LOWEST INTEREST RATE, by far” — saving at least a trillion dollars a year. Then the kicker: “WOW! The Golden Age of America is upon us!!!”

Three exclamation points. The man knows his audience.

The Real Story: The Government Is Shrinking

Buried beneath the headline jobs number is a statistic that matters more than anything on the payroll survey. Federal employment has dropped to its lowest level since 1966. As a share of the total workforce, it’s the lowest in recorded history.

The White House posted a chart showing the trajectory. In January 2025, the federal government employed more than three million people. By January 2026, that number had plummeted below 2.7 million. Three hundred thousand federal positions gone in twelve months. That’s not attrition. That’s DOGE with a chainsaw.

And here’s the part that drives the Beltway class crazy — the private sector is picking up the slack. While the federal workforce shrank, private employers added 172,000 jobs in a single month. The economy didn’t collapse when Washington got smaller. It grew. Almost like the private sector does better when the government stops sitting on it.

The Interest Rate Play

Trump didn’t just celebrate the jobs number. He used it as a launching pad for his next fight — borrowing costs. His argument is straightforward: if the United States is the strongest economy in the world, why are we paying interest rates that don’t reflect that? A lower rate on government bonds would save a trillion dollars a year, which gets you a lot closer to a balanced budget without cutting a single program.

It’s an aggressive play, and the bond market doesn’t take orders from the White House. But the logic isn’t wrong. America’s borrowing costs should reflect its economic strength, and right now there’s a disconnect between the fundamentals and the rates. Whether Trump can pressure the Fed and the market into closing that gap is another question entirely — but he’s putting it on the table, loudly, while the numbers are in his favor.

What the Critics Will Say

They’ll say 130,000 jobs isn’t spectacular. They’ll point to the downward revisions. They’ll note that the report was delayed and question why. They’ll find a reason to be gloomy because being gloomy about the Trump economy is a full-time job for certain people, and business is always good.

But here’s what they can’t argue with. The economy added jobs above expectations. Unemployment ticked down. The federal workforce is the leanest it’s been in sixty years. And the private sector is growing while the government shrinks — which is the exact formula every conservative economist has been recommending for decades.

Trump didn’t inherit a golden economy. He inherited inflation, bloated government, and an expert class that told everyone a recession was right around the corner. Fourteen months later, the jobs beat expectations, the government is smaller, and the same experts are quietly updating their models.

Golden age? Maybe that’s a stretch. But the direction is right, the trajectory is up, and the people who said this couldn’t work are running out of excuses.