Donald Trump's colossal error on jobs during his press conference [GAFFE DROOL ALERT]

CNBC ^ | Jan 11, 2017 | Steve Liesman

[expat_panama]

President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a press conference in Trump Tower, New York, January 11, 2017. Trump's plans for rebooting the economy 15 Hours Ago | 03:22

Donald Trump wasn't asked much about the economy during his press conference on Wednesday, but when he was, the president-elect managed a rather colossal error.

Trump said that there "are 96 million wanting a job and they can't get (one). You know that story. The real number. That's the real number."

It is unfortunately very far from the real number. There are in fact 96 million Americans age 16 and older who are not in the labor force. Of this, just 5.4 million, or 91 million fewer than the number cited by Trump, say they want a job. The rest are retired, sick, disabled, running their households or going to school. (This number is 256,000 fewer than last year and 1.7 million fewer than the all-time high for the series in 2013.)

Defining the size of the jobs problem in America is critical for the administration and the Federal Reserve to get economic and monetary policy right. If there is indeed a large cadre of Americans who want work but can't get it, it makes sense to have strong fiscal and monetary stimulus. If that number is shrinking, as the data suggest, it means much less policy is needed and too much could ignite inflation.

A more charitable explanation for Trump would expand the number to include those people who are working part time because they can't find full-time work, all the unemployed and those marginally attached to the workforce. This broader measure of slack in the economy, known as the U6, is about 14.7 million. It's the lowest since May 2008, and has come down by nearly 12 million since...

[ClearCase_guy]

The precise integer is not the point. The point is that Obama has been lying with statistics for 8 years, showing everyone what a big economic success he has been. Unemployment under 5%? Obama is a genius!!

The point is that Trump is going to be more honest and he’s going to let people know that a lot of folks have given up on looking for work and they have become statistically invisible. And a lot of people are “working” but get by with multiple part-time jobs.

The “real number” shows that the job situation is not as good as we have been told. What is the “real number”? Does it really matter?

[spintreebob]

In millions. That people can hold 2+ jobs not shown here.
324.1 US Population Dec 2016
`75.5 Age 18 and under
248.6 Adults
`48.3 Age 65+
`45.3 Age 65+ on SS
200.3 Age 19-64
`3.0 Age 65+ not on SS
203.3 Potential in workforce
159.6 in workforce (by one way of looking at it)
`43.7 not in workforce
`22.0 Government/public sector employment
``0.4 Active duty military
``1.0 In military not active duty
``3.6 Federal civilian workforce
``3.9 State and Local employment fulltime
``1.9 State and Local employment part time
`12.0 ??? These BLS statistics don’t add up. What am I missing?
137.6 in workforce not in government employment.
``7.5 unemployed per BLS
130.1 in workforce and have a job in private sector
``0.1 have a private sector job but on strike/lockout
130.1 in private sector and actually working
`12.3 in manufacturing jobs
nn.n breakdown could be done by industry, by occupation, etc
xx.s “

43.7 not in workforce
15.0 in school as reason not in workforce. Number both work and school?
28.7 not in workforce and not in school
`0.4 in prison
28.3 available
20.0 not in workforce and don’t want a job per WSJ
No recent statistical breakdown found as to why don’t want a job.
Want to be Housewives? Independently wealthy?
Prefer to live solely on SSI,SNAP, EBT, Medicaid, etc?
`2.6 not in workforce and do want a job.
`5.7 not in workforce and
no recent good statistical description of them

`8.0 on SS age 18-64 survivor benefits, etc
`4.1 on SSI age 18-64. More than doubled from 2.0 in 2008
74.7 on Medicaid. Subtract 65+ and 18- for working age adults on Medicaid.
46.0 on food stamps. Subtract those 65+ and 18- for working age adults on food stamps.
Fm.k How many on Food Stamps/Medicaid are in the workforce and work?
Fm.l How many on Food Stamps/Medicaid are in the workforce and unemployed?
Fm.m How many on Food Stamps/Medicaid are not in the workforce but work in the underground economy?
Fm.n How many on Food Stamps and Medicaid want to work but can’t find a job?
Fm.p How many on Food Stamps and Medicaid get more money from welfare than they can get from a low wage job?

Fulltime, partime distinction often not made. Some people have 2+ jobs. Sum of parts should really be greater than the total number of people for that reason.

Numbers based on BLS, government statistics (and WSJ).
Not all from same month of 2016. Don’t quibble over 0.1 millions difference from your number.
But when off by 12 million as in BLS numbers for Government employment, do ask.

[DCBryan1]

Dont believe ANYTHING Steve Leisman says. He is a beady-eyed, die hard liberal. Hell, Honeymooned in the Soviet Union, like Bernie I think. He loves Communism. He wants the Government to run our lives.

[DoodleDawg]

The precise integer is not the point. The point is that Obama has been lying with statistics for 8 years...

Then don't you need a precise integer to show just how badly Obama has been under-stating the problem? Using the 95 million figure just gets you laughed at. Trump needs to have his people come up with the accurate figure, a simple explanation on how it was arrived at, and then he can hammer away at Obama's alleged job creation and show it is all smoke and mirrors.

The point is that Trump is going to be more honest and he’s going to let people know that a lot of folks have given up on looking for work and they have become statistically invisible.

Claiming 95 million people are looking for work is not being honest. It's giving the media more ammunition to shoot at you with. He needs an accurate figure that shows how wrong the current unemployment figure is and what the magnitude of the problem is. Shooting from the hip and throwing out bogus figures may have been fine for the campaign but he's in a different league now. He's about to become president.

[gogeo]

Your mind is chained to that official statistic, the unemployment rate. It's so misleading as to be a lie...And Exhibit 1 as to why government statistics should be taken with a sand truck full of salt.

I'm saying the official rate doesn't measure anything meaningful...So it doesn't relate to anything else, and cannot be used to compare different times.

[InterceptPoint]

5.4 Million say they want a job because they are currently receiving unemployment benefits that require them to certify to the government, every other week, that they are looking for a job. The day the unemployment runs out is the day they stop certifying, and is the day they drop out of the 5.4 million.

So the number of people looking for a job is somewhere between 5.4 million and 94 million. The exact number is a figure the government works very hard to obscure. One thing for sure, it is a helluva lot more than 5.4 million.

Well said Haiku Guy, well said.

[Freee-dame]

Perhaps this misleading description of unemployed/looking for a job will be changed. It should be called the number collecting unemployment benefits. There are so many types of fake news coming from the MoP (Ministry of Propagands, formerly MSM) and Washington DC.

[wastoute]

Thanks.

[ClearCase_guy]

Totally disagree. As another poster has said, EVERYONE is looking for work. Unless they are rich and retired. I’m gainfully employed and my salary is decent. I regularly search on-line for a better job.

Trump said people are looking for a job they can’t get. Accept that as a true statement. If our economy were stronger, taxes lower, regulations reduced, fewer companies moving to Mexico, fewer illegal immigrants holding jobs in the US — if all of that started to get fixed MANY Americans would find jobs that they liked better than their current job.

Claiming 95 million people are looking for work is honest. It’s actually an understatement since EVERYONE is looking for work.

[jjotto]

The crisis is the declining percentage of people working who are age 25-54. The labor force participation of people over 55 has been increasing for several decades.

https://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_table_303.htm

[DoodleDawg]

As another poster has said, EVERYONE is looking for work. Unless they are rich and retired.

My parents are retired, they aren't looking for work. I have a niece and a nephew, one in high school and one in college, and they aren't looking for work. I know stay-at-home moms who are not looking for work. I know people who are disabled, they aren't looking for work. That 95 million figure is every person in the U.S. over age 16 and who is not in the military and not institutionalized. The vast majority of them are not looking for work. For people to claim otherwise is spreading the same kind of fake news that Trump has been so rightly criticizing lately.

[expat_panama]

Kind of reminds me of the old “how many months have 28 days”; correct answer: “all of them”.

[PapaBear3625]

Once again, liberals take him literally rather than seriously. 96 million is the largest number of adults out of work ever. Of course not all are looking for work, but a huge number are and many more want a full time job rather than 1 or 2 part-timers. Therefore that is the number that matters. We know what he means. The real number.

I notice something that Trump keeps doing.

The "official narrative" is X. Trump says "Y". The press goes on a rant about how uninformed Trump is, but in the process people start looking at the area, and notice that, while Trump's version might be off, the "official narrative" is complete BS.

And he has the press doing this job for him, for free.

[TakebackGOP]

Many people are going to school or going back to school, because they can’t get a job. I wish their was a Wikileaks on the unemployment number that came out right before the second Obama-Romney debate, where it showed unemployment exactly where he said it needed to be for him to be a successful president when he was elected.

[TakebackGOP]

*there

[PapaBear3625]

How many people are in the work force working part-time because they can’t find full-time work?

How many skilled people are working at WalMart or Dunkin Donuts because they can’t find a job in their area of skill.

These people are “in the work force”, and yet also “looking for a job”.

[Wuli]

It is not a case of the other 91 million not wanting a job. They have given up looking for one, given up expecting this economy to produce them.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“One example is beating out 16 other professional politicians in the GOP primaries. Then beating Hillary Clinton, the Demon Party apparatus and the entire corrupt media to win the election. Yeah, that Trump is some dummy.”

+1

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I’ve been retired for the past year, but prior to that I managed a Garden Center.

We lived through 0bama (and COMPLICIT RINOS, IMHO) doing these things to us:

Taking away our really good, company paid (75%) healthcare.

Limiting people to 29 hours of work each week; MAXIMUM.

Taking away our Flex Fund for OTC drugs, other medical needs, etc.

That was MORE than enough, trust me. Scheduling became a nightmare - I was FORCED to hire more people than ever before to cover shifts (we were open 7 days a week, 10-12 hour days) so yes, *I* contributed to ‘creating’ jobs that really weren’t worth much to the Economy as a whole, let alone the person that held that job.

So HAPPY that this National Nightmare will be coming to an end. I really feel for anyone in Middle Management. The remaining few of us that still HAD good paying jobs with healthcare coverage.

*Rolleyes*

[semimojo]

We've all seen this graph. It tells a bad story.

It mostly tells the story of a demographic bubble called the baby boom.