The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3 percent, but the figure represents only a fraction of the bigger picture. The converse statement, that 95.7 percent Americans are employed, is flatly false. Why? BLS only characterizes someone as “unemployed” if they are looking for a job but can’t get hired. People who don’t work, but, for whatever reason aren’t seeking employment (think students, retirees, homebodies, the disabled and the plain old demoralized) are not included in the workforce, which is the figure used to calculate unemployment.
Trump has declared that he would be the “greatest” ever president on jobs. But do his claims bear scrutiny? Private sector job tallies increased every month in the final 81 months of former President Barack Obama’s presidency, signaling that the positive jobs reports in the early months of the Trump era might be mere continuations riding the coattail effect of Obama-era policies. But according to CNS, the number of jobs added in May was fewer than analysts expected, indicating this trend could be ending.
Trump has yet to pass any major form of legislation he campaigned on, including a health care overhaul, tax reform or an infrastructure package to rebuild what he calls America’s “crumbling” roads and bridges.
Yet the president boasted on Thursday, “The economy is starting to come back, and very, very rapidly,” as he explained how Washington would stick its head in the sand as China, the European Union and India take the lead on climate action.
