WASHINGTON: The final employment scorecard delivered during President Donald Trump's administration on Friday handed the Republican a mantle no politician would envy: He will be the only modern president to leave office with fewer U.S. jobs than when his term began.
A global pandemic that Trump - who lost his bid for re-election to Democrat Joe Biden in November - was late to recognize and prone to downplay or outright deny through much of its course laid waste to the U.S. economy in the final year of his term. It erased all semblance of the booming job market that he had hoped would vault him to a second term.