Trump.45 can’t add. And he is a Crap Magician with his Employment Smoke and Disappears. He insisted over and over about the Best of All Possible Job Worlds with his 11.4 million new jobs created since May. He stoutly resisted any talk of unemployment numbers for his 60 Minutes interview.

To an American Worker, talking about jobs without accounting for simultaneous New Unemployment (real workers losing their current jobs) makes no actual sense. Crazy Talk by a Buffoon.

Thursday is Jobs Report Card Day, one week removed. CNBC, among the usual suspects,  always has a brief summary, and so too today. Read it for yourself.

Let’s look at the two simple graphs with the piece. Et Voila!

For 31 straight weeks (up to last week) more than 1 million gainfully employed American workers lost their jobs and income every single week, without letup. Minimum 1 million every week, week after week, until this very day. But that is not the half of it. In just the last 2 weeks in March alone that number was more than 10 million. And for the next 3 weeks after that combined the number was more than 16 million American Workers. And for the next 5 weeks after that the number of new job losses was more than 2 million additional hard working Americans every single week. So, in the first hard Pandemic 10 weeks, more than 36 million employed workers under Trump lost their jobs.

So, here’s the simple math. When Trump.45’s actual Pandemic policies could have made a difference to America’s breadwinners, 36 million were left behind. And we are supposed to pat him on the back and give him a big grateful hug that in the last five months 11.4 million jobs have rebounded.

If you add in the 21 million more lost jobs since the first 10 weeks of the Pandemic (Trump’s Plague) that is the worst Jobs Mess in American History. Obama got it right yesterday. Trump is the first US President to LOSE jobs during his term of office. Yowzah!

Even so, the immensely powerful underlying American Economy has been straining to recover with massive injections of Federal Reserve stimulus, direct Federal Aid passed by Congress including the PPP and business loans and grants so that there has been an enormous multi-million job churning effect as jobs have been reduced, readjusted, switched across industries and employers, moved around the country, temporarily brought back, lost again, and others eliminated entirely.

Job Loss for each worker is an individual existential crisis for that worker and their family during a health pandemic. But the net result of all these job cross currents and mitigation efforts on the Country as a whole is somewhat muted in the aggregate.

So, in total, Trump hasn’t created any net jobs whatever this year. He has lost 12 million nationwide so far, with three months to go. By itself, that alone is the worst jobs employment record of any US President in the modern era.

“But wait,  there’s more” as My Cousin Vinny’s Girlfriend proved on the witness stand.

The CNBC graph is based on the usual normal Initial Claims data paradigm, pre-COVID-19. But during the Pandemic we have extended benefits, and special additional coverage under PUA (Pandemic Unemployment Assistance emergency compensation program). The real number of job loss claims includes new filings under PUA as well. Last week that number was 509 thousand. So, the actual number of new job losses is 787 K plus 509K or 1.3 million.

When Trump took office he inherited an average Weekly Initial Jobs Claim rate of about 220,000 per week. He was able to maintain that rate for 3 years himself. So, his actual new and improved October 17 Jobs Picture of 1.3 million new weekly job losses is only 6 times worse than Obama’s last year in office. Say it ain’t so, Joe.

The CNBC graph is incomplete for Pandemic Use. And most recently it is misleading, since the complete weekly claims (new jobs loses) is no longer falling, it is actually going up to levels not seen since late July.

New weekly Jobs losses are not getting better in Trump’s late recovery, they are just getting worse again, like say, the number of new Daily Covid cases in the US. A malevolent health/jobs double-dip, if you will.

And since the pace of new job “creation” that Trump.45 mumbles about is slowing substantially after 4 months, the combined double whammy on Worker Unemployment is more severe now than since late April.

Trump is playing a lousy Magic trick on credulous listeners, and the Mainstream Media are far too accommodating and molasses slow on calling out his statistical flim-flam. Where is James Randi, when we all most need him? Sadly, just passed. May the Amazing Randi Rest in Peace.

Meanwhile millions of American Workers are idled. Families are income stressed and stretched to the breaking point.

Great Job, Mr. President.

And to finish off the truly excellent and joyful news, let us also consider in passing the US Unemployment Rate, which is a mainstay of Trump’s appeal to Black, Hispanic, Asian, Women, Others, and Everyone Else of Lowest Unemployment Rates in US history. He gussies it up by tech economic talk of the greatest V-shaped recovery from an official Recession in history.

Here is the CMBC graph of 50 years of US Continuing Claims for Unemployment. Those are the folks out of work for extended periods. There is a V-shaped curve alright. Except this one is presented upside down. And Trump.45’s best recovery position (October 2020) is still worse than Obama ever gave us at the absolute worst time during the Economic Crisis he inherited from Bush (and the Republican Administration) in 2009. At the time of Trump’s best effort during the COVID crisis (the end of which is right around the corner) his existing jobs preservation performance is still 3-4 times worse than Obama’s efforts after the 2008-2009 Recession (25 million out of work vs 7 million).

And Trump’s record is the flat out poorest of any President in the last 50 years. Even if you give him a Mulligan on the most horrible part of the Up and Down V-section of the 2020 change, Trump still holds the undisputed stone cold worst job loss record in 50 years, and he did it way faster than anyone else (at lightning speed), thus magnifying the economic shock and injury to displaced workers allowing them virtually no time to adjust to worsening conditions on their own, say by moving, getting job training, seeking a spousal second income, etc.

These 12 million more jobless Americans in Bad Times with Trump can’t be magically swept under his carpet, tonsorial or otherwise.

Regular folks tend to notice that stuff.

Vote, America!

Vote as if Your Lives Depended On It.

They Do.

12 Days to Go