US Politics
Number of Americans working multiple jobs hits a 25 year high as new sign of economic worry emerges
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The number of Americans forced to work multiple jobs has reached a record high for the second time during Donald Trump’s presidency.
The news comes just weeks after Donald Trump delivered a speech in which he claimed that the United States was “poised for an economic boom the likes of which the world has never seen.”
Just weeks earlier, he had scored his economy as “A+++++.”
New figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, seen by The Washington Post, have called his claims into question.
According to the BLS, 9.3 million people have taken on multiple jobs to make ends meet. That figure is up from 8.9 million in March 2025, which was reported by Forbes.
Unemployment rates have also spiked under Trump. The current figure stands at 4.6 percent, according to BLS statistics, a four-year high.
The spike in people taking on additional jobs and the rise in general unemployment are worrying signs for the economy, suggesting the labor market is slowing.
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In the last three months, Trump has added just 67,000 jobs have been added to the economy. That is eight times smaller than when he took over from President Joe Biden, whom the current commander-in-chief claimed had “blown up the economy.”
Joshua Beers, a government contractor from Maryland, told The Washington Post that he was forced to take a second job because of last year’s government shutdown. Unlike federal workers in payrolled positions, he did not receive any back pay during the 43-day shutdown.
“The job market feels really confusing right now,” he said, telling the newspaper that he was still delivering food for Uber Eats. “I don’t want to give up anything I can do for additional income on the side.
Trump has long struggled to downplay the importance of BLS reports, insisting in September 2025 that the “real numbers” will be available in a “year from now.”
He added that the second half of 2026 would see the opening of “huge, beautiful places, the palaces of genius” and that the public will see “job numbers that are going to be absolutely incredible.”
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However, Laura Ullrich, director of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab, told The Washington Post that the latest BLS report could indicate that affordability is becoming an increasingly serious issue.
“When people start adding jobs, and certainly a second full-time job, that says something about affordability, and about needing more money to meet household expenditures,” she said. “In theory, yes, if people ‘want’ to have multiple jobs, and they’re able to find them, that’s a good thing.
“But from a human perspective, the fact that more people are working two full-time jobs is hard to think of as a positive development.”
The number of people working part-time has spiked by 62 percent between November 2024 and 2025, according to the statistics. That massive jump was the biggest increase on record and was largely fuelled by people being unable to find full-time work.
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Guy Berger, director of economic research at the Burning Glass Institute, told The Post that it was a sign of “underemployment” and is a clear signal that the “labor market is getting worse.”
A poll in December found that frustration with Trump’s economic policies is growing. The NPR/PBS News/Marist Survey found that 57 percent of respondents disapproved of his economic plans, his lowest rating on the issue across both of his terms in office.
Although 81 percent of Republicans thought he was handling the economy well, 91 percent of Democrats had the exact opposite opinion. The survey found that 68 percent of independents were also unhappy with his economic plans, with pollsters suggesting the issue could continue to become bigger for Trump.
“This is a major problem for him,” Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, told PBS News. “When affordability is so front and center in people’s minds, that’s going to be laid at the doorstep of a chief executive.”
