Trump told Congress that "ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force," but that leaves a lot of context out.
In doing so, however, Trump repeated a figure that makes the job market sound much worse than it is.
"Tonight, as I outline the next steps we must take as a country, we must honestly acknowledge the circumstances we inherited, " said Trump. "Ninety-four million Americans are out of the labor force."
That seems like a lot considering that the total US population is just over 320 million people. But consider what the Bureau of Labor Statistics is actually measuring when it counts those 94 million.
The calculation of the labor force uses all civilian Americans over the age of 16. Thus, Trump's seemingly harrowing statistic includes students in high school and college, retirees, and even those disabled and unable to work.
Trump's been criticized for using this figure before. In fact, he used it during the campaign for President. As far back as 2015, PolitiFact called Trump (and Ted Cruz separately) out for using the number.
Now to be fair, the job market has its problems: the labor force participation rate is at its lowest level in three decades.
Additionally, the employment-to-population ratio — the percentage of people over 16 that have a job — is at the lowest since the mid-1980s.
Now both of these statistics are skewed somewhat by the aging population of the US. As an analysis by the President's Council of Economic Advisors notes that roughly half of the drop for the labor force participation sagging is due to the increased rate of Baby Boomers retiring.
As Trump did also point out, the prime ago employment-to-population ratio, which strips out people under 25 and over 54 years old, is still lower than it was before the recession but recovering quicker than the broader measure.
Additionally, the headline average hourly wages from teh jobs report is still beneath pre-recession levels (though alternative measures like the Atlanta Fed's wage tracker show strong growth) and a persistent mismatch between worker's skills and the skills employers are looking for has developed.
While the labor force is no doubt facing issues still, there is a lot of good news to be had. For one thing, unemployment is near its lowest since before the recession. Even the U-6 unemployment measure, which includes people in part-time jobs that want full-time work and discouraged workers, has recovered to near pre-recession levels.
Add onto that other strong data points: the number of job openings in the US is close to a record high, the US has added over 11 million private sector jobs since 2008, and the number of people saying they are having trouble finding work in the Conference Board's Consumer Confidence survey is near record lows.
There are also plenty of ways the job market is still behind, but Trump's claim that 94 million out of the labor force makes America sound worse than it is.
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