Posted on 01/12/2017 2:36:13 AM PST by 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...
(Excerpt) Read more at cnbc.com ...
How many skilled people are working at WalMart or Dunkin Donuts because they can’t find a job in their area of skill.
Those are very good question and the kind of facts and figures that Trump should be talking about because they would blow holes in Obama's job creation claims. So how many are there? It's a whole lot less than 95 million.
Seriously? You think that interpretation of his comment is is more plausible than CNBC's?
What would the point be using your interpretation? That we all have aspirations?
Why would Trump waste time with such an obvious observation?
In context it's clear that he was lamenting the poor state of the job market, and his number was flatly wrong.
...Claiming 95 million people are looking for work is honest.
It may be honest but if we accept your first statement it's perfectly meaningless.
It could be said any time, in any economic era under any President.
I’ve noticed it too. Genius the way he brings the controversy to the front for exposure.
I read that AT MINIMUM it's 14-15 million seriously looking but can't find jobs.
Of the 94 mil, many are boomers...retiring in mass daily. Lots haven't looked for work for years with the depressed market and COULD COME BACK INTO THE MARKET, making it worse, but that's likely offset with the retirees.
Then there's those on welfare, who could also be forced back into job seekers, inflating the number closer to the 94 mil. Ditto false disabilities adding a few more million.
Further, immigration reform is certain to scramble the job market even further...surely to open up millions of part-time jobs.
If anyone can figure this out, hats off to them.
With all the smart people Trump has working for him I would be surprised if they couldn't come up with a figure. It would show just how much federal government statistics need to be overhauled.
This is why people hate the media. Everyone knows what he's talking about. ALL of these things are being abused...especially disability.
Three more words:
Under the table
Not true.
Most of the 96mm are discouraged workers who are not seeking jobs because they don’t exist or are not attractive enough to get them off the couch.
That may be, but my bet is that most are part time or underemployed workers official classified in w/ the 100+M employed.but still want a job they can't get --one that's decent and pays what they should be able to earn.
Go can ahead and interpret your brains out for all I care but it won't change the fact that T said there "...are 96 million really wanting a job and they can't get." CNBC changed it deceitfully when the instead said: "'Trump said that there "are 96 million wanting a job and they can't get (one)"'." The extreme left will say "aw sure technically he didn't say it but we all know that's what he was thinking".
They've done it many times before --remembering the time he said he favored "profiling " immigrants and the press changed his statement to be that he favored "racial profiling".
Oh good grief.
He started the sentence saying there would be millions more workers but...
If it helps you sleep you can ignore his previous statements and the context of this one and assume that he intended to speak in an unparsable sentence fragment.
The crisis is no one thing. Allegedly disabled on SSI is distressing. We should be healthier than in the past.
Medicaid membership of healthy work age adults is increasing. They should be working at good paying jobs and buying their own medical care.
Drug use is increasing which partially explains SSI and Medicaid problems.
Our mis-education system is producing people who are not competent to do the jobs available. Seriously, how much is a kid worth who had a poor attendance record prior to dropping out of highschool?
And how much is a college grad worth in the job market if the major was gender studies?
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