The statistical lie of Trump’s ‘job creation triumph’
With all the recent jubilation in the United States over the stock market’s giddy highs and job creation, there are a few things the public would do well to keep in mind.
First is the fact that less than 20 per cent of American citizens directly own stocks. Few people will gain from recent rises and the ones that do are not the ones needing the help.
Even more worrying is the way numbers have been used to give the impression jobs are being created and fewer people are unemployed. The labour participation rate (people employed or looking for work) is at a 38-year low of only 62.6 per cent, and many of the jobs they partake in are paid as little as $7.50 an hour, with people needing two or even more jobs just to survive. Someone who works just one hour a week is counted as employed, and given that three part-time jobs now exist where one used to suffice, it’s easy to see how job creation is just a statistical lie. The way things are going, that border wall had better get built quick. In a few years time the poor citizens with no jobs, no healthcare and poor education will be desperate to get to Mexico or Cuba.
Lungstib
