The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released an employment report
today claiming that non-farm employment increased by 235,000 in February and
that the unemployment rate is only 4.7 percent.
Donald Trump has reacted this way to the BLS calculation of
unemployment.
“Such a phony
number. The number isn’t
reflective. I’ve seen numbers of 24
percent—I actually saw a number of 42 percent unemployment. Forty-two
percent. 5.3 percent unemployment [the BLS
February number was actually 4.7] that is the biggest joke there is in this
country…The unemployment rate is probably 20 percent, but I will tell you, you
have some great economists that will tell you it’s a 30, 32. And the highest I’ve heard so far is 42
percent.”
In fact, a former budget director for President Reagan, David
Stockman, has calculated that if you assume that there are at least 210 million
Americans between the ages of 16 and 68, which he says is “a plausible measure
of the potential workforce,” and that each of those people is able to hold down
a full-time job then they would offer a total of 420 billion potential working
hours. But, the actual working hours reported by the BLS have been only about 240
billion working hours. Stockman says, run
the numbers and you will see clearly that “the real unemployment rate is 42.9
percent.”
Although the former budget director admits that his calculation
is imperfect, Trump has said that he has far more faith in the accuracy of 42.9
percent figure than the fake and totally misleading “phony numbers” offered up
by the BLS.
So, who are you going to trust, Donald Trump and Reagan’s
budget director or the bureaucrats at BLS?
A 42 percent unemployment rate is hardly the sign of a administration that creates jobs.
Check out the facts here:
No comments:
Post a Comment