The July jobs report , and the downward revisions that came along with it, confirmed what other data, surveys and economists had been cautioning for some months now: The US labor market has been growing soft and stagnant .

The realization, however, hit like a ton of bricks and triggered some extracurricular drama in the process.

The month’s 73,000 estimated jobs added were well below the 115,000 net gain expected and half the size of June’s preliminary tally. As for May and June’s gains, those were drastically slashed by a combined quarter of a million jobs.

When all was said and done, President Donald Trump fired BLS Commissioner Erika McEntarfer , claiming, without evidence, that she manipulated the numbers for “political purposes.” (Revisions are a “feature, not a bug” of eco

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