Elizabeth Warren: Low Unemployment Is Because Americans ‘Working 2, 3, or 4 Jobs’

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) says the low unemployment rate across the United States thanks to President Trump’s “America First” economy is not a good sign, falsely claiming that an increasing number of Americans are working multiple jobs.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhl, Warren repeated a false claim made by socialist Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — who is likely to become the congresswoman from New York’s 14th District.

Warren claimed Trump’s economy, which has secured historic low unemployment for black and Hispanic Americans and record low jobless claims, is forcing more and more Americans into working multiple jobs. Warren said:

There was a time when saying, ‘Hey the unemployment rate has gone down. That’s a great thing.’ But you know, when people are working at minimum wage jobs that won’t support them or they’re working two, three, or four jobs to try to pay the rent and keep food on the table, then simply saying ‘The unemployment rate figures have gone down’ just doesn’t get you there.

This falsehood is not supported by the most recent job figures from June, where less than five percent of Americans work multiple jobs. This means that more than 95 percent of Americans do not work multiple jobs.

In the last few months of the Obama administration, a little more than five percent of Americans held multiple jobs. Since March 2017, under Trump, the number of Americans who work multiple jobs has stayed at or below five percent.

Ocasio-Cortez repeated this falsehood last week during an interview, complaining that low unemployment is not indicative of the well-being of Americans.

“We look at these figures and we say, ‘Oh, unemployment is low, everything is fine,’ right?” Ocasio-Cortez said. “Well, unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs. Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and can barely feed their kids.”

As noted in the employment data above, this is not the case for more than 95 percent of Americans.