02-04-2017, 01:21 AM
Quote:“We have a real unemployment rate that’s probably 21%,” Mr. Trump told Time magazine in August 2015. “It’s not 6. It’s not 5.2 and 5.5. Our real unemployment rate–in fact, I saw a chart the other day, our real unemployment–because you have 90 million people that aren’t working, 93 million to be exact. If you start adding it up, our real unemployment rate is 42%.”Five Things Donald Trump Said About the Jobs Report Before He Was President - Real Time Economics - WSJ
In August 2015, according to the Labor Department, the unemployment rate was 5.1%. Mr. Trump was right that many millions of Americans did not have jobs and were not counted as unemployed. But for most, that’s because they were not actively looking for work—such as retirees, stay-at-home parents or teenagers in high school. The number of people outside the labor force in August 2015 was 94 million. It was 95.1 million as of December 2016. And the figure should continue to rise as the U.S. population grows and ages.
Former General Electric Co. chief executive Jack Welch made waves in October 2012 when he questioned the validity of a jobs report released in the lead-up to the presidential election, tweeting that the numbers were “unbelievable” and claiming “these Chicago guys” changed them. (Mr. Obama’s re-election campaign was based in Chicago.)
Mr. Trump took Mr. Welch’s side few days later in a tweet. Economists, including a former head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics appointed by President George W. Bush, sided with the government and defended the integrity of the labor statistics. An investigation found no evidence the unemployment rate was manipulated ahead of the election..