The Jobs Report That Trump Bragged About Contains An Error And Was Wrong

The May jobs report that showed unemployment dropping to 13.3% contained a massive error and the BLS says the unemployment rate is three points higher.

Via The Washington Post:
When the U.S. government’s official jobs report for May came out on Friday, it included a note at the bottom saying there had been a major “error” indicating that the unemployment rate likely should be higher than the widely reported 13.3 percent rate.

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.

The jobs report that Trump rushed to hold a press conference about, and Republicans used to justify not passing more economic stimulus was inaccurate. The unemployment rate didn’t drop by a point. It grew by two points. It also means that when the numbers are revised, the US economy didn’t add jobs last month. It lost them.

Trump will run with the inaccurate number because it is better for him politically to pretend like the pandemic is over and the economy is recovering. However, the economy has not entered into recovery mode yet. Jobs are still being lost.

No one should see anything malicious in the Bureau of Labor Statistics error. They are trying to collect data in the middle of a pandemic. It isn’t business as usual for anyone.

Friday’s event at the White House was Trump’s mission accomplished banner moment. He celebrated something that never happened as the country remains mired in the worst economic collapse since the Great Depression.

Jason Easley

Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.

Awards and  Professional Memberships

Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association