Sounds like CNN is sort of quoting Trump remembering something about payrolls as a percentage of the total civilian non-institutional population--
--which shows a % about where Trump's quoted by the always truthful CNN. In other words, things are as bad now as they were when Reagan was president. imho the number says more about today's economy than the headline unemployment, but we'll need to lose the "real-unemployment" name and perhaps call it the "not-employment rate".
Great minds think alike! I’ve said for years that the over cooked U3 and U6 numbers are just a playground for deception. It should be simple....say there are 95 million adults NOT working....that’s 40%.....and for example 27% are retired - so that’s 13% who are not working who SHOULD be working.