The American job market just got some troubling news: Unemployment in November rose to 4.6 percent, the highest since the peak of the covid-19 government lockdowns. According to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, belatedly released on December 16, the U.S. economy lost 105,000 jobs in October and added only 64,000 in November.

• President Donald Trump has blamed the Federal Reserve, particularly chairman Jerome Powell, for the slowdown, saying that its December 10 quarter-point key interest rate reduction should have been “at least double.” He has also indicated that once Powell’s term ends in May, he wants a new chairman who will push for larger rate cuts than many economic officials currently support.

Cutting the Federal Reserve rate would indirectly create more jobs by making it cheaper for both businesses and individuals to borrow money. Yet it would also exacerbate inflation by further expanding the money supply.

This is one of the main reasons Powell continues to defy President Trump’s wishes.

• The U.S. money supply expanded an incredible 40 percent during the covid-19 crisis as Congress mailed out stimulus checks and the Federal Reserve bought up treasury bonds, causing record inflation.
• To reduce this inflation from 9.1 percent to 2.3 percent, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates to 5.3 percent.
• This decision prompted people to pull about $1 trillion out of circulation by stashing it in savings accounts, slowing economic growth.

Now that the Fed is cutting rates, even if only in quarter-point increments, inflation has gone back up to 2.7 percent, and it will go even higher if the Fed does what President Trump is pushing for.

In other words, the U.S. is struggling to simultaneously keep inflation low and job growth high. Why? Because of out-of-control government spending.

President Trump blames Powell for the nation’s economic woes, but the truth is that Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” and other measures are directly causing major economic problems.

“All government spending is taxation,” billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has said. “The part that isn’t covered by tax revenue becomes inflation.” Because inflation reduces the actual value of a taxpayer’s earnings, he said, “You’re either taxed directly by the government or taxed by inflation.”

• In fiscal year 2025, the government spent $7 trillion while collecting $5.2 trillion in taxes, expanding the money supply with $1.8 trillion in borrowed money.
• High interest rates motivated people to save rather than spend, so the year-over-year inflation rate was only 3.0 percent. But this number will increase if Congress keeps running $1.8 trillion deficits while the Fed slashes interest rates.

The only way for Americans to experience low inflation and significant job growth is to do the one thing they’re unwilling to do: cut government spending. Currently, the federal government spends 5.9 percent of the nation’s gdp on the deficit, while the economy is growing at only 3 percent per year.

This is unsustainable. If America does not halve its federal deficit, its debt-to-gdp ratio will likely hit 150 percent in a generation. No one is sure what debt-to-gdp ratio will finally push America into bankruptcy, but as billionaire Warren Buffett has warned about the deficit, “If something can’t go on forever, it will end.”

In Deuteronomy 28, God specifically warns that debt problems are one of the many curses that result from disobedience to His laws. America’s concerning jobs report is further proof of this fact. Learn more in our Trends article “Why the Trumpet Watches America’s Economic Collapse.”