President Trump recently repeated his claim that he has lowered the African American (A-A) unemployment rate more than anyone else in the nation's history. He has also claimed significant reductions in the Hispanic's and women's unemployment rates.
The A-A unemployment rate has been declining since 2010. After the first year of Trump's presidency, the A-A unemployment rate had declined by an additional one percent. This unemployment rate has decreased by ten percent since 2010, and nine percent of that decrease occurred while Obama was president. Thus, Trump's claim is nine-tenths a lie.
The unemployment rates for Hispanics and women has also been declining since 2010. Given that Trump has not created a specific program to decrease these rates, the decrease in the respective rates was just part of the overall decrease in the unemployment rate.
President Trump has also claimed to be a greater job creator than Barack Obama. According to Department of Labor statistics, Obama created 4.3 million jobs in his first 20 months in office, compared to Trump's 3.8 million jobs in his first 20 months. Obama's average monthly increase in jobs was 187,000 in 2016, versus Trump's average of 171,000 jobs in 2017. The economy added more jobs in every year of Obama's second term than it did in Trump's first year.
The overall unemployment rate has decreased by about 6.3% since it hit a peak in Obama's first term. About 5% of that decrease occurred in the Obama era, and about 1.3% has occurred under Trump up to this point in time.
Looking ahead, economists have long advised the public that if the national government appropriated $1 billion with the primary purpose of creating jobs, it will create significantly more jobs in education and health care than if added to the Pentagon's budget. There are several factors contributing to this imbalance, but two are of particular importance: 1.) the Pentagon needs components from other countries for its military machine, and money goes overseas to pay for them; and 2.) foreign nationals service and maintain our far-flung overseas military bases, and they are paid out of the Pentagon's budget.
The Pentagon's budget was $611 billion when Trump took office. The FY 2020 budget for the Pentagon is $738 billion. Since the Pentagon and the domestic sector compete for discretionary spending dollars, shoveling much more money into the Pentagon's maw lessens the funding for domestic programs, which are greater job creators, will be reduced.
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