Which Hunt

Who ya gonna believe, me or reams of scientific data?

   The U.S. had  the lowest number of jobless claims since 1973, and the unemployment rate is at 4 percent.
   Nevertheless, the president persists in lamenting the severe draining of American jobs and the dire need to rebuild the manufacturing sector.
   Which is it?
   Either the U.S. economy is suffering badly and needs tax breaks to enable it to recover, or it has been steadily recovering for the past seven years.
   Who, then, is more credible, a president who voices conflicting statements within minutes of each other, during the same speech, or a series of data points published over months by independent government agencies like the Labor Department, the Commerce Department and the Federal Reserve Board?
   In the week ended Oct. 14, initial claims for unemployment benefits totalled 222,000, a drop of 22,000 from the previous week, the Labor Department said. This was an advance estimate, and could well be revised. The agency revised the previous week's level upward by 1,000 claims, to a total of 244,000.
   It's also true that the ability of local agencies to process claims was severely disrupted by the two hurricanes that struck Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. Therefore, once power is restored and people can make their way to unemployment offices, the number of claims in these two American territories will likely rise substantially.
   So while the president's comment that initial claims for jobless benefits are the lowest since 1973 is true as far as it goes, it's important to remember that the comment doesn't go very far, since it leaves out the disruption caused by two hurricanes. Moreover, the comment contradicts the president's regular warnings about job losses.
   Evidence of that contradiction is the report that total employment nationally is likely to grow by 11.5 million jobs over the next ten years, to a total of 167.6 million, according to a projection by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This job growth will be led by the health care sector. Note: These are jobs that cannot be exported. Hospitals and doctors serve their local communities, and cannot care for sick people via long distance telecommunications.
   In addition, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the total value of goods and services produced in America, will grow by an estimated 2.0 percent through 2026, the BLS said. That's about the level of the Federal Reserve Board's preferred rate.
   As  for the Trump family's devotion to jobs in America, TV commentator Ali Velshi of NBC compiled a list of countries where garments for Ivanka Trump's clothing line are made. The list was: Other countries, six, the U.S. zero.