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Who's 'Winning'? Almost 95M Americans Are Neither Working Nor Seek Employment

© AP Photo / Evan VucciTrump smiles as he is introduced to speak to U.S. military troops and their families at Naval Air Station Sigonella, Saturday, May 27, 2017, in Sigonella, Italy.
Trump smiles as he is introduced to speak to U.S. military troops and their families at Naval Air Station Sigonella, Saturday, May 27, 2017, in Sigonella, Italy. - Sputnik International
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Friday’s jobs report was overshadowed by US President Donald Trump’s retweet of his son’s post about stock market gains. The diversion may have been smart: Nearly 95 million people in the US are neither employed nor seeking work, the Bureau of Labor Statistics report shows.

© Twitter Donald Trump Retweeting Son Eric
Donald Trump Retweeting Son Eric  - Sputnik International
Donald Trump Retweeting Son Eric
​The labor force participation rate dropped, again, to just 62.7 percent, indicating that more and more people are sitting on the sidelines, CNS News points out. A sizeable contingency of the US population, 608,000 people, left the labor market since last month, according to BLS data released Friday.

The unemployment rate ticked down to 4.3 percent, but the figure represents only a fraction of the bigger picture. The converse statement, that 95.7 percent Americans are employed, is flatly false. Why? BLS only characterizes someone as “unemployed” if they are looking for a job but can’t get hired. People who don’t work, but, for whatever reason aren’t seeking employment (think students, retirees, homebodies, the disabled and the plain old demoralized) are not included in the workforce, which is the figure used to calculate unemployment.

Trump has declared that he would be the “greatest” ever president on jobs. But do his claims bear scrutiny? Private sector job tallies increased every month in the final 81 months of former President Barack Obama’s presidency, signaling that the positive jobs reports in the early months of the Trump era might be mere continuations riding the coattail effect of Obama-era policies. But according to CNS, the number of jobs added in May was fewer than analysts expected, indicating this trend could be ending.

Trump has yet to pass any major form of legislation he campaigned on, including a health care overhaul, tax reform or an infrastructure package to rebuild what he calls America’s “crumbling” roads and bridges.

A conference attendee looks at a projection of the Earth on the opening day of the COP 21 United Nations conference on climate change, on November 30, 2015 in Le Bourget - Sputnik International
EU, China, India to Take Lead on Climate if Trump Leaves Paris Agreement

Yet the president boasted on Thursday, “The economy is starting to come back, and very, very rapidly,” as he explained how Washington would stick its head in the sand as China, the European Union and India take the lead on climate action.

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