Trump OMB Director Claims Obama “Manipulated” the Unemployment Figures

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President Trump has already claimed that Barack Obama left him an economy in a “mess”; that Obama is probably behind all the protests and leaks; and that Obama had him wiretapped during the campaign. Now along comes OMB Director Mick Mulvaney to add yet another ugly accusation:

We thought for a long time, I did, that the Obama administration was manipulating the numbers in terms of the number of people in the workforce to make the unemployment rate, that percentage rate, look smaller than it actually was.

These folks just don’t stop. This isn’t quite as bad as the wiretapping thing, but it’s still plenty appalling. Then there was this:

The BLS did not change the way they count, I don’t think, but you can have a long conversation when you’ve got a numerator and a denominator, how to arrive at a percentage.

Oh FFS, it’s a pretty short conversation even for a sixth grader. Here’s the formula:

  • Percentage = 100 * (numerator / denominator)
  • Employment rate = 100 * (number employed / labor force)
  • Using the jobs numbers from February: 100 * (152,528 / 160,056) = 95.30 percent. Subtract from 100 to get the unemployment rate: 4.70 percent.

There are no alternative ways of doing it. Here’s a pretty chart for Mulvaney showing the numerator, denominator, and unemployment rate for the past decade:

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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