2026-08-24T15:27:19.191Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/24/politics/fact-check-trump-economy-statistic
唐纳德·特朗普总统表示，不要相信那些显示多数美国人不认可他处理经济事务方式的多项民调。上周五，为了辩称民众对他的经济支持率本应更高，他援引了一项几乎毫无意义的事实，并将其描绘为一项重大成就。
“我会看到一项民调，”他在南卡罗来纳州的一场集会上表示，“结果会是‘特朗普在经济议题上的支持率为44%’。怎么可能只有44%？我们现在的就业人数比以往任何时候都多。”
特朗普在演讲中稍后又提及了同一事实：“记住我这句话，我会一遍又一遍地重申：如今美国的就业人数比我国历史上任何时期都多。”随后，为强调这一所谓事实的重要性，他第三次重复了这句话。
目前尚不清楚特朗普是真的不知道这一事实无关紧要，还是明知这一点却为了政治利益刻意夸大其重要性。无论如何，“一遍又一遍”地宣扬这一事实不太可能提升他在经济议题上的支持率——因为这项数据几乎无法说明经济的真实状况。
美国的就业人数通常会随着时间推移而增长，原因仅仅是人口总量在不断增加。除了2008年金融危机或2020年新冠疫情危机引发的经济衰退时期之外，就业人数往往会逐年攀升。
“美国就业人数更多，是因为美国人口更多。这就是全部的分析逻辑，”密歇根大学公共政策与经济学教授贾斯汀·沃尔弗斯本月早些时候在其时事通讯中写道。
至少自1948年现代联邦数据收集工作启动以来，每一位美国总统都可以在其任期内的某个时刻准确地宣称，美国的就业人数比以往任何时候都多。这显然并非因为每位总统都在治理着完美无瑕的经济。
几乎可以肯定，生活成本而非劳动力市场状况，是导致特朗普今年经济支持率低迷的关键因素。但即便你只关注就业岗位，也有比特朗普不断援引的这项数据好得多的指标来衡量就业形势。这些其他指标显示，特朗普第二任期内的经济远未达到历史强劲水平。
例如，你可以查看就业人口比率，即16岁及以上人口中就业者所占的百分比。这一比率已从特朗普2025年1月就职连任当月的60.1%，降至2026年7月的58.9%——低于乔·拜登总统任期最后三年的任何时期。
与拜登任期相比，特朗普第二任期内的就业增长速度大幅放缓——即便你忽略拜登任期初期经济仍在从疫情前水平复苏的阶段。在拜登任期的最后18个月，即2023年8月至2025年1月，美国经季节调整后新增了220万个就业岗位。相比之下，从特朗普重新上任的首个完整月份2025年2月到2026年7月的18个月里，美国经季节调整后仅新增了59万个就业岗位。
失业率，即失业人口占劳动力总数的百分比，在2026年7月为4.1%，略差于2025年1月的4%。按照历史标准来看，4.1%的失业率并不算高，但仍不及拜登时期的最低值3.4%（2023年4月创下），也不如特朗普第一任期内的最低值3.5%（2019年末至2020年初的部分时段）。
而劳动参与率，即16岁及以上人口中就业或积极求职人群所占的百分比，已从2025年1月的62.6%降至2026年7月的61.4%。这一下降部分可能属于统计异常，但没有任何迹象表明就业市场出现了繁荣。
至于特朗普青睐的衡量标准“当前就业人数”？根据一项联邦调查的数据，今年美国的个体就业人数实际上略有下降。但根据另一项联邦调查的数据，总就业岗位数量仍像往常一样持续创下历史新高，因此我们可以说特朗普的说法在准确性上还算站得住脚。
只是这一数据毫无信息量可言。
Why one of Trump’s favorite economic statistics is nearly meaningless
2026-08-24T15:27:19.191Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/24/politics/fact-check-trump-economy-statistic
President Donald Trump says not to believe the many polls finding that most Americans disapprove of his handling of the economy. On Friday, to argue that his numbers should be much better, he cited a nearly meaningless fact he portrayed as a major accomplishment.
“I’ll see a poll,” he said at a rally in South Carolina, “and it’ll say, ‘Trump is at 44% on the economy.’ How can it be at 44? We have more people working now than ever before.”
Trump heralded the same fact later in the speech: “Remember when I say, and I’ll say it again and again: There are more people working today in the United States of America than at any time in the history of our country.” And then, emphasizing the supposed importance of the fact, he repeated it a third time.
It’s not clear whether Trump is genuinely unaware this fact is insignificant or whether he is knowingly hyping an insignificant fact for political gain. Regardless, touting the fact “again and again” is unlikely to do anything for his economic approval — because the fact tells us almost nothing about the state of the economy.
The number of people working in the US generally rises over time simply because the population rises over time. With the exception of recessions, like those caused by the financial crisis of 2008 or the Covid-19 crisis of 2020, the number of employed people tends to just get higher as the years pass.
“There are more Americans working because there are more Americans. That’s the entire analysis,” Justin Wolfers, a University of Michigan professor of public policy and economics, wrote in his newsletter earlier this month.
Every US president since at least 1948, when modern federal data collection began, could have accurately said at some point during their tenure that more people were working in the US than ever before. That clearly isn’t because each of these presidents was presiding over a pristine economy.
The cost of living, not the state of the labor market, has almost certainly been the key driver of Trump’s dismal economic polling this year. But even if you’re looking only at jobs, there are much better ways to gauge the situation than the statistic Trump keeps citing. These other metrics show his second-term economy is far from historically strong.
You can look, for example, at the employment-population ratio, which measures the percentage of the population ages 16 and over that is employed. It’s down from 60.1% in January 2025, the month of Trump’s second inauguration, to 58.9% in July 2026 — lower than it was during the entirety of Joe Biden’s last three years as president.
The pace of job creation has slowed dramatically in Trump’s second term compared with Biden’s term — even if you ignore the early part of Biden’s tenure, when the economy was still bouncing back to pre-pandemic levels. The US gained a seasonally adjusted 2.2 million jobs in Biden’s final 18 months in office, from August 2023 through January 2025. Conversely, the US gained a seasonally adjusted 590,000 jobs in the 18 months from February 2025, Trump’s first full month back in office, through July 2026.
The unemployment rate, which measures unemployment as a percentage of the labor force, was a touch worse in July 2026 (4.1%) than it was in January 2025 (4%). Even 4.1% is pretty good by historical standards, but it’s not the Biden-era low of 3.4% (set in April 2023) or the 3.5% low during Trump’s first term (in parts of late 2019 and early 2020).
And the labor force participation rate, which measures the percentage of the population ages 16 or older that is employed or actively looking for work, has dropped from 62.6% in January 2025 to 61.4% in July 2026. Part of that decline may be a statistical quirk, but there’s no sign of a boom.
As for Trump’s preferred metric, “people working today”? There has actually been a slight decline this year in the number of individual Americans employed, measured by one federal survey. But the total number of filled jobs, measured by a different federal survey, has continued to hit record highs as usual, so we’ll say Trump’s claim is accurate enough.
It’s just not informative.
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