The job market mathTrump got a number of the facts wrong in his recent unemployment rate denial – the least of which is that the unemployment rate stands at 4.6%, according to the BLS, not 4.5%, as he stated. Rehiring for all the 271,000 lost federal worker positions would take the unemployment rate down to just 4.4%. Zero unemployment has never come close to happening – the lowest US unemployment rate ever recorded was 2.5%, last achieved in June 1953. So Trump’s math is seriously fuzzy – but so is his underlying message that the US job market is significantly stronger than the unemployment rate suggests. Trump’s history of unemployment untruthsTrump has had a decade-long struggle with the truth about the unemployment rate and other jobs data.

Source: CNN December 23, 2025 10:27 UTC