Against a guaranteed jobs program

Every one who wants a job should ideally have a job. But the government shouldn't "guarantee" it.

No job guarantee.
(Image credit: Ikon Images / Alamy Stock Photo)

President Trump made many wild claims about the U.S. economy during the 2016 campaign. He frequently asserted that official job numbers dramatically understated unemployment. Fake government news! The real unemployment rate, he speculated, could be as high as 42 percent, far worse than at the depth of the Great Depression.

Today, of course, President Trump has fully embraced those very same job stats as evidence that Trumponomics is working. After all, the official unemployment rate is 4.3 percent — though lowest number since 2001, and a level that probably puts us at or near full employment.

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James Pethokoukis

James Pethokoukis is the DeWitt Wallace Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute where he runs the AEIdeas blog. He has also written for The New York Times, National Review, Commentary, The Weekly Standard, and other places.