On Tuesday night, Donald Trump spoke briefly to reporters on an airport tarmac and summarized why he’s so pleased with the state of the nation.

“The country’s doing well,” the president said. “The stock market, a fantastic record, and we have 79 records so far in a short period of time. More people are working right now in the United States than ever before, and prices are dropping fast. Iran is going fine, going just absolutely fine. We totally control the Strait of Hormuz. We have control over it. Nobody else, only us. Our Navy is unbelievable. And things are going great for our country.”

Most of the claims in the Republican’s summary were brazenly untrue. Consumer prices in the United States are clearly not “dropping fast”; the reference to setting “79 records” appears to have been entirely made up; the war with Iran is not “going fine”; and the U.S. military most certainly does not have “control” over the Strait of Hormuz.

But there was one part of Trump’s celebration of the status quo that stood out for me: “More people are working right now in the United States than ever before.”

For those who keep an eye on the president’s rhetoric, the boast probably seemed familiar. In fact, earlier that same day, he said during an interview on Real America’s Voice, “We’re doing better than we’ve ever done. … We have more jobs than, you know that more people are working now than at any time in the history of our country by far?”

He pushed the same line a week earlier in Las Vegas, arguing, in reference to the economy, “So the biggest thing for this whole thing, more Americans are working in the United States right now than at any point in the history of our country. Think of that. Think of that. You don’t hear that.”

A day earlier, during a Fox News interview, Trump similarly said, “Just, by the way, job numbers. We have more people working in the United States today than ever in history. We’re doing an unbelievable job.”

I can appreciate the fact that the president is in a tough spot when it comes to the American job market. After months of promises about the amazing number of jobs he and his administration would create, Trump appears to be failing rather spectacularly: The U.S. economy lost 23,000 jobs in July, which was the sixth time since Trump returned to the White House that job growth turned negative. (During Joe Biden’s presidency and Barack Obama’s second term, the total number of months in which the economy lost jobs was zero.)

All told, the U.S. economy has added 542,000 jobs over Trump’s 19-month second term, a dramatic decline from the nearly 2.7 million jobs that were added over the previous 19 months. Excluding the 2020 pandemic, the first year of Trump’s second term was the worst year for job creation since the Great Recession, and this year is on track to be the second-worst year for job creation since the Great Recession.

Given the importance of the issue — Americans tend to care about getting and keeping jobs — the incumbent president seems to realize he has to say something, so he keeps repeating the same talking point: “More people are working right now in the United States than ever before.”

The trouble is, this doesn’t mean what he thinks it means.

As The Associated Press recently explained in a fact-check report, “The economy adds jobs most months, so U.S. payrolls are constantly hitting new highs. Jobs have increased in the United States 65 of the last 80 years.”

The president has long struggled with the basics of economics, but the underlying details are entirely straightforward: As the nation’s population grows, the size of the workforce grows with it. Every modern president, Democratic and Republican, has been able to say the same thing during their terms.

The talking point is accurate, but it’s just not that big a deal.

Far more important is whether the U.S. economy is actually generating more jobs, and on that front, Trump’s record is an embarrassment.

This post updates our related earlier coverage.

The post Trump’s favorite economic talking point doesn’t mean what he thinks it means appeared first on MS NOW.

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