The Arithmetic in Donald Trump’s Jobs Plan Doesn’t Really Work

The Arithmetic in Donald Trump’s Jobs Plan Doesn’t Really Work

by Neil Irwin at the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/16/upshot/the-arithmetic-in-donald-trumps-jobs-plan-doesnt-really-work.html?_r=0

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Right now there are 152 million Americans working. The Congressional Budget Office projects that number will be 159 million in 2026, at the end of the 10-year window Mr. Trump talks about.

The C.B.O. bases its forecasts on demographic modeling. If it’s right, that’s a rise of only seven million in employment, a far cry from the 25 million Mr. Trump envisions. So he would have to find huge numbers of extra workers somewhere.

The most obvious source is to pull from the legions of adults who aren’t in the labor force, who currently neither work nor look for work. And their numbers have soared since the 2008 recession. “Right now, 92 million Americans are on the sidelines, outside the work force, and not part of our economy,” Mr. Trump said, according to the prepared text of his speech. “It’s a silent nation of jobless Americans.”

But the problem with that number (it actually is 94 million, if he’s referring to the Bureau of Labor Statistics number for adults not in the labor force) is that it includes a lot of people who aren’t working for good reason: They’re high school and college students; stay-at-home parents; people who are disabled; retirees.


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