President Donald Trump claimed Wednesday on Twitter that, in addition to even brighter days ahead due to upcoming blockbuster trade deals, the country has added 3.4 million jobs during his time in office.
So when Trump boasts about record job numbers, he’s generally correct on the figures.
3.4 million jobs created since our great Election Victory – far greater than ever anticipated, and only getting better as new and greatly improved Trade Deals start coming to fruition!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 18, 2018
The worst economic downturn since the Great Depression began in late 2007. At the lowest point, 8.7 million people were out of work. Since 2009, the economy has created about 19 million jobs in all, with Trump taking credit for 3.4 million jobs.
But is he correct, or inflating the figures?
Through June, according to FactCheck.org, the economy has added 3.2 million jobs with unemployment at its lowest level in 18 years since Trump took office. In addition, the number of jobs available topped the number of job seekers for the first time on record.
The unemployment rate, which was already below the historical average when Trump took office, fell to 3.8 percent in May, the lowest rate in nearly two decades. It crept up to 4 percent in June, but Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Tuesday during his semi-annual report to Congress he expects job gains to remain strong.
In fact, the reason for June’s slight rise in unemployment was due to a shortage of workers to fill open positions. There were 6.8 million unfilled job openings during the month of April, the most since the Bureau of Labor started tracking the statistic more than 17 years ago.
In March, the number of unemployed looking for work, about 6.6 million, was less than the number of job openings for the first time on record. The number of job openings fell to 6.6 million in May, the second-highest number on record and still more than the number of job-seekers, for a gain of about 1.2 million job openings.
Add it all up and that’s nearly a 22 percent increase in the number of job openings during the Trump administration.
Manufacturing jobs have seen a boon under Trump, adding about 344,000 jobs through June, following a net decrease of 192,000 under Barack Obama. That’s an increase of 2.8 percent, even better than the 2.2 percent increase in overall employment.
So when Trump boasts about record job numbers, he’s generally correct on the figures.
FactCheck.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, award-winning site and “consumer advocate for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics.”