To put September's unemployment rate of 3.7 percent in perspective, the last time it was smaller, Richard Nixon occupied the Oval Office, the moon landing was still headline news, and the Dow Jones industrial average was a little above 800.

That was 49 years ago, in December 1969.

Reaching such a level now illustrates how much President Trump's work with congressional Republicans to reduce the top corporate tax rate and loosen regulations has buoyed a bustling U.S. economy, despite low approval ratings and criticism of his other policies.

The figure, reported by the U.S. Labor Department on Friday, was accompanied by misleadingly slow topline job growth. Payroll gains of 134,000 — far lower than expected — were affected by upward revisions of 87,000 for July and August, and artificially curbed by Hurricane Florence, which slammed into the southern North Carolina in mid-September and caused flooding that hampered employee tallies.

"If you dig further into the data, you see it's a pretty solid jobs report," Joseph Song, an economist with Bank of America, told the Washington Examiner.

Indeed, the revisions to July and August numbers yield three-month average gains of 190,000, well above the level the Federal Reserve says is needed to accommodate young workers entering the labor market and still maintain stable economic growth.

Manufacturers alone added 18,000 positions, despite concerns that Trump's tariffs on aluminum, steel, and $250 billion in Chinese imports are crimping profit margins and have already forced smaller businesses to lay off workers.

Optimism in the industry is at near-record levels, according to a National Association of Manufacturers survey, and Song said the hiring shows that worries about trade haven't yet prompted most businesses to cut production or trim their workforces.

Noteworthy gains also occurred in the construction industry, where payrolls expanded by 15,000, and finance, which added 13,000 workers, largely in real estate.

Payrolls in retail, which dropped by 20,000, and restaurants and bars, which fell by 17,000, may rally in October as the effects of Hurricane Florence dissipate, Bankrate.com economic analyst Mark Hamrick told the Examiner.