WASHINGTON  — The U.S. economy added 818,000 fewer jobs from April 2023 through March this year than were originally reported, the government said Wednesday.

The revised total adds to evidence that the job market has been steadily slowing and likely reinforces the Federal Reserve’s plan to start cutting interest rates soon.

The Labor Department estimated that job growth averaged 174,000 a month in the year that ended in March — a drop of 68,000 a month from the 242,000 that were initially reported. The revisions released Wednesday were preliminary, with final numbers to be issued in February next year.

The downgraded estimate follows a jobs report for July that was much worse than expected, leading many economists to suggest that the Fed had waited too long to begin cutting interest rates to support the economy. The unemployment rate rose for the fourth straight month, to a still-low 4.3%, and employers added just 114,000 jobs.

The Fed raised its benchmark rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023 to fight inflation, which hit a four-decade high more than two years ago. Year-over-year inflation has since plummeted — from 9.1% in June 2022 to 2.9%, clearing the way for the Fed to begin cutting rates when it next meets in mid-September.

Former President Donald Trump has said the Fed shouldn’t cut rates so close to an election. But Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell has repeatedly underscored that the central bank would make its rate decisions based purely on economic data, without regard to the political calendar.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren urged Powell to cut rates at the Fed’s July meeting. She said that delaying a cut when it’s warranted by the inflation data would itself be a political act.

The revised hiring estimates released Wednesday are intended to better account for companies that are either being created or going out of business.

“This doesn’t challenge the idea we’re still in an expansion, but it does signal we should expect monthly job growth to be more muted and put extra pressure on the Fed to cut rates,” said Robert Frick, economist at the Navy Federal Credit Union.

Most members of the Fed think it’s time to cut rates, according to minutes from the board’s July meeting.

The transcript, also released Wednesday, said the “vast majority” of policymakers “observed that, if the data continued to come in about as expected, it would likely be appropriate to ease policy at the next meeting.

In July, the policymakers kept their benchmark rate at 5.3%, a near-quarter-century high, where it’s stood for more than a year.

Most analysts think Powell will signal in a speech Friday that the Fed has become confident that inflation is headed back to its 2% target and might even give some hint about how many rate cuts could happen this year. When he held a news conference after last month’s Fed meeting, Powell had suggested that a broad range of policy moves were possible, from “zero cuts to several cuts,” by year’s end.

In the job number revisions, new professional and business services jobs — a broad category that includes managers and technical workers — were reduced by 358,000 in the 12 months that ended in March. Leisure and hospitality employers — including hotels and restaurants — added 150,000 fewer than first reported.