President Donald Trump uses a lot of fictional statistics. He usually deploys them with a breezy confidence.
At an event in Wisconsin on Friday, though, he made a statistical claim that sounded so clearly dubious that he wondered aloud where it had come from.
"And we've also had huge drops in — and I'll tell you, this is something that's amazing: African American unemployment is now doing better than it's ever done. And I don't know where that stat came from, but I'll take it," he said. "I don't know where the ******* that stat come — but we'll take it."
The mystery "stat" isn't true.
The most recent unemployment rate for Black or African Americans was 6.6% in May, federal statistics show (all unemployment figures in this article are seasonally adjusted). That's an improvement from the previous rate, 7.3% in April, and from its highest rate during Trump's second term, 8.2% last November — but it's not close to a record low.
At an event in Wisconsin on Friday, though, he made a statistical claim that sounded so clearly dubious that he wondered aloud where it had come from.
"And we've also had huge drops in — and I'll tell you, this is something that's amazing: African American unemployment is now doing better than it's ever done. And I don't know where that stat came from, but I'll take it," he said. "I don't know where the ******* that stat come — but we'll take it."
The mystery "stat" isn't true.
The most recent unemployment rate for Black or African Americans was 6.6% in May, federal statistics show (all unemployment figures in this article are seasonally adjusted). That's an improvement from the previous rate, 7.3% in April, and from its highest rate during Trump's second term, 8.2% last November — but it's not close to a record low.
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