BLS Admits Unemployment Rate Is 3 Points Higher After Major Error In May Jobs Report

Donald Trump spent his Friday ignoring the massive demonstrations all across the country and bragging about the May jobs report that showed the unemployment rate falling to 13.3 percent last month.

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Trump even had the nerve to say that George Floyd was celebrating the jobs numbers from heaven.

But according to a report from The Washington Post, the Bureau of Labor Statistics included a note at the bottom of the May jobs report admitting that a “misclassification error” is the reason for the decline in the unemployment rate.

Without the error, the report notes, the jobless rate would have actually gone up to 16.3 percent – not decreased – last month.

More from The Washington Post:

The special note said that if this “misclassification error” had not occurred, the “overall unemployment rate would have been about 3 percentage points higher than reported,” meaning the unemployment rate would be about 16.3 percent for May.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics, the agency that puts out the monthly jobs reports, said it was working to fix the problem.

“BLS and the Census Bureau are investigating why this misclassification error continues to occur and are taking additional steps to address the issue,” said a note at the bottom of the Bureau of Labor Statistics report.

Some took this as a sign that President Trump or one of his staffers may have tinkered with the data to make it look better, especially since most forecasters predicted the unemployment rate would be close to 20 percent in May, up from 14.7 percent in April.

Trump’s entire victory lap was based on an error

Donald Trump spent all day Friday bragging about the May jobs report, saying it’s evidence that he is some sort of economic savior leading the country back to greatness.

He used the report to attack economic experts who predicted that the jobless rate would be closer to 20 percent in May as millions of Americans continue to file unemployment claims.

But it turns out that his entire victory lap – much like his presidency – was based on a major error. And the economists who predicted unemployment would be closer to 20 percent were actually right, had an error not occurred in the reporting.

Regardless of whether the unemployment rate is 13.3 percent or the more accurate 16.3 percent, the U.S. economy has been in a decline not seen since the Great Depression.

Besides holding staged press conferences and spewing bumper sticker slogans, Donald Trump is doing nothing to address it.

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Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.