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Washington (CNN)During his campaign, Donald Trump’s made many claims about jobs and unemployment. CNN’s Reality Check Team put the billionaire’s statements and assertions to the test.
The team of reporters, researchers and editors across CNN listened throughout the speech and selected key statements, rating them true; mostly true; true, but misleading; false; or it’s complicated.
Reality Check: Trump on the Obama-Clinton Economy
August 8, 2016
By Tami Luhby, CNNMoney
Donald Trump slammed President Obama and Hillary Clinton on Monday, saying their policies have hurt America economically.
“Home ownership is at its lowest rate in 51 years…58 percent of African-American youth are either outside the labor force or not employed…Meanwhile, American households are earning more than $4,000 less today than they were sixteen years ago,” he said in Detroit during a speech about the economy.
Let’s look at these one at a time:
On home ownership at its lowest level in half a century:
Some 62.9% of Americans owned a home in the second quarter of 2016, according to the latest figures from the U.S. Census Bureau. The rate hasn’t been that low since the third quarter of 1965. The share of Americans owning homes peaked in the fourth quarter of 2004 at 69,2% and has declined since. We rate this claim as TRUE.
On 58% of young African-Americans being either outside the labor force or unemployed:
Trump has used this line before, often saying 58% of African-American youth have no job. The figure is likely extrapolated from the employment-population ratio, which shows that 42.7% of blacks ages 16 to 24 had a job in July. But that doesn’t mean that the rest — or 57.3% — were unemployed. To be considered unemployed, one has to be looking for a job. Those in school or not looking for work are not included in the labor force. So Trump’s statement is technically true, but it’s misleading because many young Americans don’t have jobs. Only 49% of all Americans age 16 to 24 are employed. We rate this claim TRUE, BUT MISLEADING.
On American households earning $4,000 less today than 16 years ago:
Median household income was $53,657 in 2014, according to the latest Census figures available, which is about $4,000 lower than it was in 2000. But the Census data is out-of-date. Incomes have climbed since then, according to an analysis by Sentier Research. Median household income was $57,206 in June, compared to $ $57,826 in January 2000. We rate this claim as FALSE.
Reality Check: Trump on jobs
August 8, 2016
By Tami Luhby, CNNMoney
Donald Trump has repeatedly slammed President Obama and Hillary Clinton for hurting American workers.
He ticked off a litany of claims of how employment has suffered under the Obama administration.
“There are now 94.3 million Americans outside of the labor force. 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,” he said.
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 94.3 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 people over the same time period. So we rate the claim as TRUE, BUT MISLEADING.
On labor force participation, the rate was 63.4% in July. That’s actually up a percentage point from September. And it’s above the rate in July 1976, when it was 61.8%. The labor force participation rate, particularly among men, has been declining for decades. There are many reasons for this, including the aging of the country. Also, some people can’t find positions that pay decently or don’t have the education or skills to land employment. But since the participation rate was lower last year and it’s above the level of four decades ago, we rate this claim as FALSE.
Reality check: Trump on Obamacare and jobs
August 8, 2016
By Patrick Gillespie, CNNMoney
Donald Trump claims that, as president, he would repeal Obamacare, which would save 2 million American jobs.
“One of my first acts as President will be to repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare, saving another 2 million American jobs,” Trump said.
In the speech transcript, Trump’s staff links to a December 2015 report by the bipartisan Congressional Budget Office that estimated the U.S. would lose 2 million workers by the year 2025 due to Obamacare.
The CBO report argues that workers may opt to work less to retain their eligibility for Medicaid or federal subsidies under Obamacare. Its estimate does not suggest employers will start axing jobs — just that employees might start cutting back hours to stay under certain income thresholds to qualify for Medicaid and subsidies.
CNNMoney found Americans who are already choosing to work less. However, some workers left full-time jobs that provided healthcare so that they could become entrepreneurs and start small businesses. They say Obamacare gives them the flexibility to choose a new career.
It’s important to note the CBO’s projections vary. For instance, in 2014, the CBO forecasted that Obamacare would reduce the labor force by 2.5 million workers by 2024. Last year that estimate was trimmed to 2 million workers by 2025. The CBO emphasizes that its estimates are “uncertain.”
It’s unclear if repealing Obamacare would “save” all the jobs since it would be workers choosing to drop out of the work force, not employers firing workers. Still, Trump’s claim comes from the CBO report, not his own staff’s calculations. We rate this claim on Obamacare reducing the workforce as TRUE, BUT MISLEADING.
Reality Check: Trump on the state of the economy
July 21, 2016
By Ryan Browne and Tami Luhby, CNN
During the GOP National Convention, Trump made a series of claims about the current state of the American economy, focusing particularly on the fortunes of Hispanics and African-Americans.
“Nearly four in 10 African-American children are living in poverty,” Trump said.
According to the 2014 US Census, 36% of black youth under 18 were indeed living in poverty.
That’s close enough, therefore we rate his claim as true.
Trump also said that “58% of African-American youth are not employed.”
The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute last year found that 51.3% of black and 36.1% Hispanic high school graduates, age 17 to 20, were underemployed. That means they either don’t have a job, aren’t working as many hours as they would like or aren’t currently looking for work but would like a job.
The comparable number for whites was 33.8%.
The official unemployment rate for black youth, age 16 to 24, is 14.9%. For Hispanic youth, it’s 11.6%, while for white youth, it’s 10%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The government data is not limited to high school graduates and has a wider age range.
By comparison, the overall national unemployment rate is 4.9%.
The EPI underemployment number is relatively close to 58%, but Trump said “not employed” as opposed to under employed. The unemployment number is 14.9%, three times the national average, but still not 58%. Therefore, the verdict is false.
And regarding Hispanics, Trump said that “2 million more Latinos are in poverty today than when the President took his oath of office less than eight years ago.”
According to the US Census, from 2008-2014, the number of Hispanics living in poverty grew by slightly more than 2 million during that period.
As a result, Trump’s claim is true.
Trump also talked about the challenge of Americans leaving the workforce, saying, “Another 14 million people have left the workforce entirely.”
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics does indeed say that from January 2009 to June 2015, an additional 13,988,000 people left the workforce, so Trump’s number of 14 million is correct.
However, Trump seems to imply that the increase is tied to a poor economy, while it is possible that some of the growth is due to economic factors; a significant portion is also due to the aging and large-scale retirement of baby boomers, the large subset of Americans born between 1946 and 1964.
Therefore we rate this verdict true, but misleading.
Reality Check: Trump on unemployment and GDP
March 10, 2016
By Tami Luhby, CNNMoney
Donald Trump is billing himself as the candidate that will bring back jobs to America and revive the economy. But he got some basic facts about the U.S. economy wrong at the Republican debate in Miami.
Trump erroneously said that the U.S. economy isn’t growing: “GDP was zero essentially for the last two quarters. If that ever happened in China, you would have had a depression like nobody’s ever seen before. They go down to 7%, 8%, and it’s a national tragedy. We’re at zero, we’re not doing anything.”
We’ll allow that he meant GDP growth, not the gross domestic product itself. But he’s still wrong that the U.S. economy has completely stalled. GDP growth came in at 1% during the most recent quarter and at 2% the quarter before. Granted, it’s not going gangbusters, but it’s not flat, either.
Trump also blasted the nation’s trade negotiators, saying they’ve agreed to terrible deals that have cost the country good jobs. But he botched the way the jobs report classifies the employed and unemployed.
“You look at the recent jobs reports, which are really done so that presidents and politicians look good because all of these people looking for jobs, when they give up, they go home, they give up and they are considered statistically employed,” Trump said.
The way the unemployment rate is calculated has been criticized because it only counts those who are out of work but have looked for a job over the past four weeks. Some say that method underestimates the true number of the unemployed.
However, people who completely give up looking for work are are considered out of the labor force, not employed or unemployed.
Verdict: False.
Reality Check: Trump on Social Security recipients older than 106
February 13, 2016
By Tami Luhby, CNNMoney
During the Republican debate in Greenville, South Carolina, Trump was asked how he would fix Social Security. Trump said he would eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. He noted that the Social Security Administration has many centenarians on its rolls.
“We have in Social Security right now thousands and thousands of people that are over 106 years old. Now, you know they don’t exist. They don’t exist. There’s tremendous waste, fraud, and abuse, and we’re going to get it,” Trump said.
Actually, the Social Security Administration has 6.5 million people over the age of 112 with Social Security numbers but no dates of death, according to a Social Security’s Office of the Inspector General report from March 2015.
“This missing death information could result in erroneous payments made by federal benefit-paying agencies that rely on the DMF (Death Master File) to detect inaccurate or unreported deaths. The missing death information will also hinder private industry as well as state and local governments’ ability to identify and prevent identity fraud,” the report said.
However, “almost none of these number-holders remained in current payment status,” the inspector general said. So correcting the record likely won’t save Social Security much money and help keep the system solvent.
Many politicians like to say they’ll fix the federal government’s problems by eliminating waste, fraud and abuse. But experts say not only is that very difficult to do, but it probably won’t make a big dent in solving the nation’s fiscal issues.
Verdict: It is true that there are many very elderly people in the Social Security database, but false that he could address the program’s financial shortfall by removing them.
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