Trump has bragged that African-American unemployment is at a record low. That is no longer true.
The Congressional Black Caucus' stone-faced reaction to President Trump's claim that "African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded" went viral during his State of the Union on Tuesday, but by Friday the president's assertion was no longer true anyway. In the January jobs report, the black unemployment rate rose from 6.8 percent in December 2017 to 7.7 percent in the first month of 2018, Yahoo Finance reports.
Many had already taken issue with Trump's decision to boast about the unemployment rate among African-Americans earlier this week. The rate has been "steadily declining since March 2010," when it was 16.8 percent, Fortune writes, and "while Trump was in office, it decreased by one point — keeping up a trend that had already been in place."
Even a low of 6.8 percent isn't something particularly brag-worthy; that number is still significantly higher than the unemployment rate in the U.S. overall, which was 4.1 percent in December, Fortune adds.
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Overall, unemployment remains unchanged at 4.1 percent in the January jobs report, a 17-year low.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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