The current US unemployment rate is 10.2%, nearly 6 percentage points higher than the 4.7% unemployment rate in January of 2017.
The new rate, reflecting over 16.3 million Americans out of work, is a 117% increase.
When Trump took over from President Barack Obama, the economy was in the midst of a recovery from the Great Recession, which began under Trump’s fellow Republican, George W. Bush.
Despite the negative employment figures, Republicans sought praise.
Donald Trump’s official campaign Twitter account took note of the figures, proclaiming, “renew, restore, rebuild.”
RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel wrote, “@realDonaldTrump
created a booming economy once. He’s who we need to do it again!”
The job losses under Trump have occured due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the early days of the virus, Trump downplayed the possible infection, predicting that it would just go away.
Since that prediction, over 157,000 Americans have died while over 4 million have been infected.
Business have had to close down to prevent transmission of the virus, leading to job losses from coast to coast.
Trump’s inaction led to infections, then when he prematurely pushed for business to reopen — hoping to spur economic activity — infections spiked again.
Medical experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci have said further lockdowns may be necessary in the future thanks to the erratic policy, continuing to hurt the economy.
In contrast to Trump, under Obama unemployment severely declined, dropping from a peak of 9.9% in early 2010 down to the 4.7% Obama handed off to Trump.
One of the first political bloggers in the world, Oliver Willis has operated OliverWillis.com since 2000. Contributor at Media Matters for America and The American Independent. Follow on Twitter at @owillis. Full bio.