Former President Donald Trump claimed his administration oversaw the lowest unemployment rate of black Americans ever recorded.
Verdict: Misleading
While Trump did set a record for the lowest African-American unemployemnt rate while in office, lower rates have been recorded since then.
Fact Check:
Judge Aileen Cannon will conduct hearings on several motions to dismiss the charges against former President Donald Trump regarding the mishandling of classified documents, ABC News reported.
Trump spoke at a roundtable event at a predominantly black church in Detroit, Michigan recently. This event was part of the Trump campaign’s recently launched Black voter coalition group in order to appeal directly to African American voters, accordiung to NBC News.
He spoke on the strides his administration made in supporting black Americans. He said, “We achieved the lowest African American unemployment rate and the lowest African American poverty rate ever recorded, ever, ever recorded during my four years.”
The claim is misleading. Trump did set a record for lowest black unemployment at the time which was 5.3% in August 2019 and September 2019, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. There are credible news reports, such as CNBC News, that state that black unemployment hit a record low during the Trump administration.
The same chart shows that African-American unemployment hit a new record low in April 2023 at 4.8%, which is under President Joe Biden, not Trump. African-American unemployment now stands at 6.1%, per the data.
Reuters reported on the new unemployment low at the time. A May 16 White House press release on the labor market highlighted this record.
“Looking at unemployment, from September 2022 to February 2024, the Black unemployment rate remained at or below 6 percent for the longest period on record (highlighted in green in Figure 1). Indeed, in April 2023, the unemployment rate for Black workers dropped to 4.8 percent, the lowest since series began,” the press release states. (RELATED: Image Claiming To Show Trump Statement Saying He’ll ‘Save’ Hunter Is Fake)
The black poverty rate also fell to its lowest under Biden in 2022 at 17.1%, according to a September 2023 press release from the Census Bureau. The official poverty rate for the entire nation is 11.5%, per the press release.
The 2022 poverty rate for the Black population fell to a record low even after accounting for survey and methodological changes to the CPS ASEC, the Census Bureau’s longest-running survey,” reads the press release.
The lowest it went under Trump appears to be 18.8% in 2019, which was a record low at the time, per the Census Bureau. The poverty rate for the entire nation was 10.5% at the time.
Check Your Fact contacted the Trump campaign for clarification on this claim. We also contacted economic experts to comment on this data. We will update this piece accordingly if a response is provided.