Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says a million private-sector jobs have been created under the Trump administration, and that job growth is behind the wage gains American workers are now seeing.
Bessent made the case during a policy discussion with Breitbart News, calling the underlying fundamentals of the economy “fantastic and accelerating.”
He said border control and deportation policy had reshaped expectations for monthly job numbers. “There was a thought that kind of the equilibrium, the balancing jobs number would be between zero and 40,000 because we have done the unthinkable and control the border and have had deportations, and now we’re averaging 80,000, so we’re averaging 2x, and then we have this blowout number,” Bessent said, stressing that the figures represent private-sector hiring.
“So there have been a million of these jobs created, and that’s why the wage growth is good. And I’m not surprised,” he said.
“Watching Policy Become People”
Bessent described what he called the best part of his job as “watching policy become people” — seeing tax and economic policy translate into real household outcomes.
“I tell people the best part of my job is not President Trump calling me in the middle of the night. Scott, did I wake you up? No, sir. I’m always awake at 1:52 on a Tuesday. For me, the best part of my job is going out, and I call it watching policy become people, and when I think about the Working Families Tax Cut, One Big Beautiful Bill — what was beautiful about that bill? I think it’s the symmetry of it,” Bessent said.
He explained that the bill paired “powerful corporate incentives” — including 100 percent expensing for equipment, factories, and agriculture — with the president’s signature tax promises: no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and reduced taxes on Social Security.
“Eighty-five percent of our seniors will not pay taxes on Social Security and deductibility on interest of American-made cars,” Bessent said. “And if you think you’re powering this in this manufacturing and business boom, but at the same time Americans get to keep more of their money. And I just think like it’s that symmetry.”
Inflation and Wages
Bessent addressed inflation, saying core inflation is “flat to down” despite a short-term spike in headline inflation tied to energy prices connected to the Iran conflict. He said wages are now rising faster than costs for typical workers.
“What’s different now is wages are up, so… the median worker is breaking even,” he said, adding that a quarter of earners have seen a one percent real wage increase.
He contrasted the current period with the previous administration’s economy, comparing his role to that of an emergency-room physician treating a patient in crisis.
“I say sometimes I feel like an emergency room doctor, that the Biden economy just was like American people got hit by a truck. They had to stabilize the patient. We spent six, 9, 12, months stabilizing the patient, and now that we are in the normalization phase, and I think that’s right where we are now, and I think we’re going to accelerate out of this,” Bessent said.
