Thursday, May 10, 2018 | 2 a.m.
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The statement
“Kanye (West) looks and he sees black unemployment at the lowest it’s been in the history of our country. He sees Hispanic unemployment at the lowest it’s been in the history of our country. He sees (women’s unemployment) the lowest it’s been in now almost 19 years.”
— President Donald Trump, April 26 on “Fox & Friends”
The ruling
Trump turned his sudden friendship with the rapper into a commentary about the economic results on his watch.
Trump has previously made claims of this sort, but it’s been a few months, so we thought we’d take a new look at the numbers.
In March 2018, the African-American unemployment rate stood at 6.9 percent. That’s not a record low, but it’s close — and the record low was 6.8 percent in December 2017, also on Trump’s watch.
The Hispanic unemployment rate was 5.1 percent in March 2018. That’s not a record either, but once again, it’s close.
The Hispanic unemployment rate was as low as 4.8 percent three times in 2017, in June, October and November. Those low points all occurred on Trump’s watch.
Currently, the unemployment rate for women is 4 percent. It was slightly lower during an earlier point in Trump’s presidency — 3.9 percent in October 2017.
The women’s unemployment rate was lower still in December 2000, when it hit 3.8 percent. That falls within the 19-year window Trump cited.
Now, here’s some additional context.
Economists agree that presidents don’t deserve either full credit or full blame for the unemployment rate on their watch. The president is not all-powerful on economic matters; broader factors, from the business cycle to changes in technology to demographic shifts, play major roles.
And to the extent that a president does deserve credit for low unemployment, Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama, deserves at least as much as Trump does. The unemployment rate for blacks, Hispanics and women declined dramatically on Obama’s watch as the country pulled out of the Great Recession.
Black unemployment peaked at 16.6 percent in April 2010, when Obama was president. It then fell by more than half to 7.8 percent by the time he left office in January 2017.
Hispanic unemployment, meanwhile, peaked at 13 percent in August 2009, then fell to 5.9 percent at the end of Obama’s term in January 2017.
And unemployment among women peaked at 9 percent in November 2010, before falling to 4.8 percent by the time Obama left office in January 2017, a drop of nearly half.
On balance, we rate this Mostly True.
PolitiFact is a fact-checking website operated by the Tampa Bay Times that rates the accuracy of claims by elected officials and others on its Truth-O-Meter.
