by Alex Gonzalez
On Monday, during his “economic speech,” Trump claimed that “there are now 94.3 million of Americans outside of the labor force. And That is true. But most of them are retired seniors and high and middle students.
In the speech, Trump claimed that:
It was 80.5 million when President Obama took office. An increase of 14 million people…We have the lowest labor force participation rates in four decades with 93.4 million of unemployed Americans.
There is no economic federal data to support this claim, but this inflated unemployment jobs claims are only popular among right-wing bloggers like Breitbart, the Blaze and talk radio hosts like Glen Beck and Sean Hannity who often claim we have 94 million of unemployed workers. But that is pure “crazy talk.”
In a country of 320 million, including undocumented immigrants, 94 million of people is about 30% of the total national population; and in those 94 million that includes every single child under 15, and every single senior over 70. And this is precisely the phony data in right-wing news that generates anger among the white blue-collar workers who may have lost their jobs to global markets or companies relocating oversea.
It’s true that that in 2009 there were 80.5 million people who were not in the labor force — meaning they did not have a job and haven’t looked for one in the past four weeks — and there are now 93.4 million. But that’s not solely because of Obama’s policies. While some working-age Americans have just given up looking for work, the aging of the country is also a powerful force. The number of Americans over age 65 grew by more than 11 million since every year, 4 million of baby-boomers turn 65 and retire.
If you look at this chart by the American Enterprise Institute, at 4.9% Unemployment, is about 6 million of people and even if 4.9% does not reflect the total real unemployment due to underemployed , the so-called underemployed, or “underutilized” currently is about another 5, or about 6.4 million of people working part-time jobs.
The WSJ also looked into and while official unemployment is at 3 months ago was 5 %, other more conservative estimates suggest unemployment may be two million higher than the official 5% if we add the people who are employed only part-time. The WSJ estimates that:
Nonetheless, labor-force participation rates for youths and prime-age adults remain well below pre-recession levels. Recent analysis by the Congressional Budget Office indicates that the labor force is substantially smaller than its full-employment level and that an additional 2 million Americans can be expected to rejoin the labor force as long as the job market continues to strengthen.
The data show that unemployment is at 4.9% showing we have “full employment.”So who are these unemployed 94 million Americans? Check out this chart by the WSJ, as showed the WSJ graph, this is the same trend under George W. Bush where the underemployed stayed around 5%,
The Labor Department data shows that of these 94 million of unemployed Americans 41 million Americans don’t work because they’re retired and 15 million of young Americans are in school. So claiming that we have 94 millions of American unemployed is only phony claims in right-wing blogs that generate anger among the “white blue-collar” workers who may have lost their jobs to global markets or companies relocating oversea.
As a result, is not correct that 94 million not in the labor force doesn’t mean they’re “unemployed”, they could be retired and in school. The important number is 2 lines below, which shows the numbers of people who want a job, about 6 million.
Alex Gonzalez is a political Analyst and Political Director for Latinos Ready To Vote. Comments to [email protected] or @AlexGonzTXCA
