Senator Tommy Tuberville appeared on Fox Business yesterday morning and continued to express his great confidence in Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. But one part of the Alabama Republican’s pitch could use some work:
He didn’t seem to be joking.
Tommy Tuberville: “The unemployment rates of all the people in the country were very, very low under Donald Trump, but not under this president.” (The unemployment rate when Trump left office was over 6 percent — it’s been below 4 percent for two years now.) pic.twitter.com/rAzzkwakJo
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) May 23, 2024
Look, no government is perfect, and there is plenty of legitimate criticism of the president Joe Biden‘s opponents to present to the public.
But as anyone remotely familiar with current events should know, this isn’t one of them. Indeed, it is not a matter of opinion; it is a matter of reality.
As regular readers know, over the course of the first three years of Trump’s presidency — when the Republican said the United States economy was the largest in the history of the planet — the economy created nearly 6.4 million jobs across all of 2017, 2018 and 2019.
According to the latest figures, the US economy has created nearly 16 million jobs since January 2021 – more than double the combined total of Trump’s first three years.
As for the unemployment rate, which the coach-turned-politician specifically referenced on air, the Trump-era numbers were good, but the Biden-era numbers are definitely better.
In 2017, the average unemployment rate for the year was 4.4%. A year later the average improved to 3.9%. In 2019, the situation improved slightly further, with an average unemployment rate for the year of 3.7%.
In 2020, the Covid pandemic obviously led to a recession; the unemployment rate rose to almost 15%; and the average for the year rose to 8.1%.
In Biden’s first year in the White House, the unemployment rate fell fast improved and fell from 6.4% in January to 3.9% in December. In 2022, the annual average improved to 3.6%. A year later it remained at 3.6%.
In April 2023, the unemployment rate fell all the way to 3.4% – a level not seen in the United States since before the moon landing. Moreover, the unemployment rate has now been below 4% for 27 months in a row – a trend not seen since the 1960s.
If Tuberville wants to have a debate about how and why we see these numbers, that’s fine. If he wants to discuss who deserves credit for boosting economic numbers, we can do that too.
But to claim – out loud and on national television – that the unemployment rate under Biden is not low, and that it was even better under Trump, is demonstrably ridiculous.
This article was originally published on MSNBC.com
