Politics

President Trump Bragged to Jay-Z About Black Employment. Is He Right?

By JUSTIN BANK

If Jay-Z has an opportunity to give an acceptance speech at the Grammy Awards, eyes will be on him for a response to President Trump. Chad Batka for The New York Times

President Trump bragged about lowering the black unemployment rate in a tweet directed at Jay-Z on Sunday morning. The message was seemingly a response to comments the hip-hop artist and businessman made during an interview with CNN on Saturday night.

Van Jones, the CNN correspondent who conducted the interview with Jay-Z (here’s a transcript), made his own statement on Twitter, pointing out that Jay-Z was acknowledging the low unemployment numbers.

Mr. Trump has referred to the unemployment rate at least three other times recently on his Twitter account. He also cited it during his speech at the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland, on Friday.

Mr. Trump is right. Black unemployment in the United States reached its lowest level in December. But, as my colleague Linda Qiu reported two weeks ago, the record is the culmination of a longer trend, and there has been no shift in the larger racial unemployment gap:

The 6.8 percent unemployment rate for black Americans in December is indeed the lowest since 1972, according to the latest monthly data that is available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. But the rate has been in decline for several years, decreasing steadily from 16.4 percent in August 2011 to 7.8 percent in January 2017.

The December figures also do not reflect a significantly different racial unemployment gap. The black unemployment rate has consistently been double that of the white unemployment rate, and remained at that level in December. Presidents, especially in their first year, generally do not single-handedly influence the labor markets — as Mr. Trump suggests.

Further, it’s an open question whether a president can claim credit for economic outputs like unemployment. As my colleague Neil Irwin has explained:

So does Mr. Trump deserve any credit for solid economic results? If you think the economy is driven by concrete, specific policies around taxes, spending, monetary policy and regulation, the answer is no. If you think that what really matters is the mood in the executive suite, then just maybe.

Jay-Z is scheduled to appear at the Grammy Awards on Sunday night. He is nominated for eight awards, including record, album and song of the year.