U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) used a Tuesday evening post on X to accuse the Trump administration of failing American workers and consumers, tying a weak July jobs report to the ongoing costs of the war in Iran and warning that rising prices at gas pumps and grocery stores have exposed the administration’s economic promises as hollow.
“Under the Trump Administration, jobs are down. Prices at the pump and grocery stores are up, and we’re stuck paying billions for Trump’s war in Iran. It was never about putting Americans first,” Padilla wrote in the post, published at 10:27 p.m. on August 11, 2026.
The senator’s statement came four days after the U.S. Labor Department released a downbeat employment report showing that employers cut 23,000 jobs in July on a seasonally adjusted basis, while prior months’ gains were revised down by 103,000. The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.1 percent, but largely because hundreds of thousands of Americans left the labor force altogether rather than because of new hiring.
A Labor Market “Stuck in Second Gear”
Economists who reviewed the July data described an economy that has stalled after an early-year burst of optimism. “We have a labor market that’s stable but stuck in second gear,” said Lydia Boussour, a senior economist at the consulting firm EY-Parthenon, who pointed to lingering effects from tariffs, elevated interest rates and inflation as reasons for continued business caution.
The report noted that hiring gains seen in March and April, driven by optimism around tax cuts and easing inflation, reversed sharply once oil shipments from the Persian Gulf became disrupted and the administration renewed its tariff push. The technology sector alone has shrunk 3.8 percent since its 2022 peak, according to Glassdoor chief economist Daniel Zhao, who called it “a sharp reversal from what we’ve seen in the past.” Glassdoor’s measure of employee confidence hit its lowest level on record in July.
White House Points to Manufacturing Gains
The Trump administration pushed back on the overall weak reading by highlighting a small gain in manufacturing jobs and a decline in public-sector hiring. White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement, “The Trump industrial resurgence is on schedule,” adding that the administration remained “focused on unleashing more private-sector job growth through President Trump’s proven economic agenda of tax cuts, deregulation and energy abundance.”
Economists, however, noted that the drop in the unemployment rate stemmed largely from a shrinking labor force rather than robust hiring. The labor force participation rate for people ages 25 to 54 barely recovered from a steep June decline, and overall participation sank to its lowest level outside of the pandemic recession since 1976. Analysts pointed to the administration’s immigration enforcement campaign as a key driver, after the Supreme Court allowed temporary protected status to lapse for hundreds of thousands of people from Haiti and other countries earlier this year.
Gas Prices Up Sharply Amid Strait of Hormuz Disruptions
Padilla’s reference to prices “at the pump” reflects a national gas price average that has climbed significantly since the war in Iran began. As of early August, AAA recorded the national average for regular gasoline at roughly $4.06 to $4.08 per gallon, up nearly a dollar from the same point a year earlier, with the increase attributed directly to instability surrounding the Strait of Hormuz.
California, Padilla’s home state, has been hit hardest, with prices averaging above $5.60 per gallon in early August — more than 38 percent above the national average. A LendingTree analysis found gas prices had risen by double digits in every U.S. state over the past year, with states like Michigan and Arizona seeing increases of nearly 39 percent.
Padilla’s Pattern of Statements on War Costs
Tuesday’s post is consistent with a string of statements Padilla has issued throughout 2026 tying the Iran war to household costs. In March, after Senate Republicans blocked a war powers resolution he had cosponsored, Padilla said, “Thirteen American lives lost and tens of billions of taxpayer dollars spent in just three weeks since Donald Trump plunged us into war without Congressional authorization. There is still no plan, no clear justification, and no end in sight.” He added at the time that the war was “costing taxpayers nearly $1 billion a day” and that “the price of gas is up by over $1 per gallon, in addition to electricity bills climbing due to Trump’s war on clean energy.”
In April, Padilla directly questioned Russell Vought, Director of the Office of Management and Budget, over the administration’s proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget, which included a 42 percent increase in defense spending. Padilla said the administration had refused “to tell the American people how much the unauthorized, unconstitutional war in Iran is costing taxpayers on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis,” calling the budget “a complete abandonment of a promise that the Administration supposedly made to the American people to bring down costs.”
Pressing for a Full Accounting of War Costs
In May, Padilla joined Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senators Elizabeth Warren and Jeff Merkley in leading a letter urging the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to determine the true cost of the Iran war, arguing that the administration had provided “inaccurate and incomplete estimates.” The letter noted that Americans were facing 3.8 percent inflation nationally, while Californians were paying the highest gas prices in the country. Sixteen additional Senate Democrats signed onto the effort, including Senators Cory Booker, Tammy Duckworth, Mark Kelly and Jon Ossoff.
Broader Criticism of Trump’s Economic Promises
Padilla has also linked the price increases to the administration’s tariff policy more broadly. In a separate interview earlier this year, Padilla said Americans were experiencing “a lot of the same fury, a lot of the same frustration, and people coming to the realization Donald Trump lied to them,” adding that “this is a President who said he was gonna tackle inflation and bring down prices on day one. The opposite has happened. Prices are up in all categories.”
As recently as late May, Padilla criticized a House-passed farm bill, saying growers and families “continue [to] struggle with soaring costs due to Trump’s war in Iran and his reckless tariffs.”
Economic Backdrop: Inflation Data Due Wednesday
Tuesday’s post also comes just one day ahead of the release of July’s Consumer Price Index data, expected August 12, which will offer the first comprehensive look at how war-related energy costs are feeding into broader inflation. The Federal Reserve is weighing that data, along with the weak jobs report, as it considers whether to raise interest rates to combat war-driven inflation ahead of its September meeting.
Average household electricity costs for the first five months of 2026 ran roughly 12 percent higher than the same period in 2024, a pace that outstripped broader inflation, according to reporting that cited experts pointing to strain on the electric grid compounding the effects of the war.
Context: The July Jobs Report’s Weakest Spots
Beyond the technology sector, the July report showed particular weakness in leisure and hospitality, which shed 80,000 jobs over two months despite excitement tied to World Cup host cities, and in local government education, which lost 50,000 positions. Health care and construction — the latter buoyed by data center building projects in Texas, Ohio and Virginia — remained the most reliable sources of job growth, though even those sectors saw slower gains than in the prior year.
Hourly earnings, meanwhile, grew just 3.2 percent over the year — the slowest pace since May 2021 — a rate that economists say has likely failed to keep up with the rise in prices driven by war-related energy costs and tariffs.