In the first week of February, there were 1,780 jobless claims filed at Washington, D.C. For CNBC, that was catastrophic. The business news network posted a story headlined “Unemployment spikes in Washington, D.C., as Trump and Musk begin efforts to shrink the government.”

Meanwhile, there were 213,000 first-time jobless claims the same week nationwide. 

Yet liberal news outlets are trying to paint the cuts to the federal payroll by President Trump as a borderline threat to Democracy. CNBC didn’t even know if the “spike” in D.C. jobless claims was connected to Mr. Trump’s move, writing, “While it’s unclear what share of the spike is directly related to federal government workers, the rise coincides with the White House ordering the layoffs of probationary employees along with thousands of others.” For the record, more than 75,000 federal employees accepted a buyout offer.

Google “mass layoffs” and you get story after story about the federal workforce, but next to nothing about jobs cuts in the private sector. Things are far worse there, according to Amanda Goodall, who calls herself a “labor market nerd.”

Ms. Goodall detailed how things are going in the oil industry. “Chevron: Cutting 6K-9K jobs by 2026. BP: 4,700 layoffs + 3,000 contractors gone. ConocoPhillips: 500 cuts post-Marathon merger (Q3 rumors swirling). SLB: Deep in restructuring, more cuts expected. Halliburton: Layoffs likely as 2025 revenues stall,” she wrote on X.

That’s not the only sector suffering layoffs and cutbacks. In February alone, it was announced that Boeing is preparing for 400 layoffs related to NASA’s Artemis program; the tech company Meta began global layoffs of more than 3,600 employees; General Motors is set to lay off nearly 50 percent of the employees who remain at its discontinued Cruise robotaxi business; and cosmetics giant Estée Lauder announced that it will cut up to 7,000 jobs as a part of a major restructuring plan.

The histrionics over Mr. Trump’s current cull of the federal herd pales in comparison to what President Clinton did to the federal workforce during his two terms in the White House. While Mr. Trump’s administration has laid off some 10,000 laborers since he signed an executive order last Tuesday, Mr. Clinton eliminated 377,000 federal jobs between 1993 and 1999.

When news reports last week began to point out Mr. Clinton’s efforts to trim the federal workforce, the liberal factcheck site Snopes felt compelled to weigh in, saying “there’s a key difference” between what Mr. Clinton did and what Mr. Trump and billionaire Elon Musk are trying to do.

Snopes noted that Mr. Clinton did a six-month review, but then did something very similar to what Mr. Trump has done — he offered federal officials buyouts of up to $25,000 “in an effort to reduce the workforce by 272,000 employees.” 

“But the buyouts offered by Clinton’s (National Performance Review) and Trump and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency are not the same,” Snopes declared. “Clinton’s buyout plan had overwhelming bipartisan support from Congress, and the law was signed after a review period. Meanwhile, Trump and Musk offered the buyouts just one week into Trump’s term, with no review process.”

Only in the end, MSNBC’s piece admitted the “spike” of jobless filings at D.C. doesn’t mean much.

The senior vice president at Manpower North America, Raj Namboothiry, said the culling of the federal workforce has little impact on what he called a “fairly stable” economy. “Yes, the numbers are definitely sizable,” he said. “But because you’re spread across multiple [geographies], multiple skill sets, multiple sectors, I don’t see that playing a significant role in impacting the overall market.”