After the controversial firing of Erika McEntarfer, who served as commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the release of the August jobs report was hotly anticipated. With that data now in hand, it certainly seems like the commissioner was not the reason for the weak labor market. The report brought even more bad news than expected.

Behind the headline-grabbing increase in the unemployment rate to 4.3 percent, what's most troubling is a longer-term trend of declining labor force participation. There are almost 3 million fewer people actively seeking employment than there were this time last year; this translated into both a lower labor force participation and lower employment-population ratio.

Federal policy is a mixed bag. High tariffs — and even worse, the uncertainty surroundi

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