Our rambler-in-chief said this about jobs a few months ago:
“Don’t believe those phony numbers when you hear 4.9 and 5 percent unemployment,” Trump said at a rally nearly a year ago. “The number is probably 28, 29, as high as 35. In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent.”
— Donald Trump
Definition of Unemployment Rate:
The unemployment rate is a measure of the prevalence of unemployment and it is calculated as a percentage by dividing the number of unemployed individuals by all individuals currently in the labor force.
Here is a chart of the unemployment rate published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics:
As you can see, it was fairly low at the beginning of 2007, under Bush, but it the final Bush years it skyrocketed. This was accompanied with the real estate crash. The economy was in free-fall. That’s what Obama inherited.
Through a series of measured steps, with the assistance of Congress, Obama was able to pull the world economy out of the dive and avert disaster. It worked.
We never gave Obama the credit he deserved for that. Instead, the Republicans always blasted him for the growth being too slow or too small. But still, I say it was growth, which is way better than what had happened during the Bush years.
On the flip side, we increased the debt by another $10 trillion or so. That’s what it cost. And we blame Obama for the debt.
There is no denying that the unemployment rate dropped steadily during the Obama years. But his critics would always say that the numbers were “fake” and the “real unemployment rate” was much higher. Just glance back up to the Trump quote to see an example.
I never did understand that criticism. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has done this for decades. They didn’t just start faking numbers in 2011 when the Republicans didn’t like that a Democrat’s policies actually reversed their disastrous economic results. If there were “hidden unemployed” in the public, are they saying they really were not there before but when Obama came along, suddenly they all stopped looking for work and became closet unemployed?
Trump’s statement seems to indicate that. Until now.
Since Trump has been president since January 20th, he is quick to take credit for the January numbers, which could possibly only be attributable to him by about 34 percent. 66 percent of January Obama was still president.
Funny how Breitbart suddenly likes the numbers of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The numbers grew like that under Obama for 8 years, but Trump takes credit after 10 days. Here are his own words:
“A couple of things happened this morning,” Trump said referring to the report. “So we are very happy about that. I think that it’s really big league. We’re bringing jobs back, we’re bringing down your taxes. We are going to get rid of your regulations.”