This week, CNN’s Jake Tapper, in collaboration with FactCheck.org, examines Donald Trump’s claim that he “heard” that the unemployment rate is 42 percent.
The official unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in January, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s nowhere near what Trump said he heard.
Even including the underemployed (part-time workers wanting full-time work) and the “marginally attached” (those who have given up looking for a job but had looked for one in the past year), the rate would be 9.9 percent.
Trump is referring to the number of working-age Americans not in the labor force. However, that includes millions of people who aren’t working and don’t want to, need to, or can’t.
Watch the CNN fact-checking video here, and read our Feb. 10 report “Trump Wildly Inflates Unemployment” for more details.