Jobs report no longer phony, Trump says, now that it’s his
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump is embracing government numbers he once maligned as “phony” as he tries to take credit for the latest US jobs report. The new administration on Friday promoted Labor Department statistics that show US employers added 235,000 jobs in February. The unemployment rate dipped to 4.7 percent from 4.8 percent.
“Great news for American workers: economy added 235,000 new jobs, unemployment rate drops to 4.7 percent in first report for @POTUS Trump,” tweeted White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer. “Not a bad way to start day 50 of this administration,” he later said. What a difference from last year’s presidential campaign, when Trump repeatedly assailed the report’s legitimacy. Back then, candidate Trump denounced “phony unemployment numbers” he claimed had been invented to make the Democrats look good.
“Don’t believe those phony numbers when you hear 4.9 and 5 percent unemployment. The number’s probably 28, 29, as high as 35,” he said last February, on the day of the New Hampshire presidential primary. “The 5 percent figure is one of the biggest hoaxes in modern politics,” he said. That’s last year’s 5 percent, not the new numbers reported on his watch. Asked about the apparent disconnect, Spicer offered a smile and a quip: “I talked to the president prior to this, and he said to quote him very clearly: ‘They may have been phony in the past, but it’s very real now.’”
During a speech at the Detroit Economic club last year, Trump pointed to figures that show one in five American households do not have a single member in the labor force. He failed to mention the one in five includes children, young people in school and senior citizens who are retired. Though the jobless report has been criticized by others for omitting people who aren’t actively searching for work, it provides a benchmark that is similar to most other nations. While business and consumer confidence have risen since the presidential election, economists also say it’s too soon for Trump to be taking credit for jobs.