Democrats may need to find a new line of attack against the strong labor market that has prevailed during Donald Trump’s presidency.
The share of working Americans holding multiple jobs fell to 4.8 percent in June, close the lowest levels on record. That is just a notch above the 4.7 percent record low hit in November 2013 through January 2014, April and May 2015, and October 2017.
Arguably, however, the June number is more impressive than any of those because overall employment is at a record high and unemployment much lower. The seasonally-adjusted unemployment rate in November 2013, for example, was 6.6 percent. Today it is 3.7 percent.
That hurts the credibility of Democrats like Senator Kamala Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who have argued that Trump’s economy is weaker than it seems because so many Americans are forced to hold multiple jobs to make ends meet.
“Well yeah people in America are working — they’re working two and three jobs,” Harris said on the second night of Democratic primary debates.
I’m meeting people who are working two and three jobs — you know this president walks around talking about and flouting his great economy right — my great economy, my great economy … You ask him how are you measuring the greatness of this economy of yours? And they point to the jobless numbers and the unemployment numbers. Well yeah people in America are working — they’re working two and three jobs.
Harris has made that false claim on a number of occasions in recent months. Similar claims have been made by Beto O’Rourke and Bernie Sanders.
Rep. Ocasio-Cortez made the same claim a year ago.
“Well, unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs,” Ocasio-Cortez said on PBS’s Firing Line.
The repetition of the falsehood suggests that Democrats are struggling to find truthful ways to attack Trump’s economic performance, which garners high approval ratings in surveys of public opinion.
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