Sarah Sanders bizarre Trump, Obama black jobs, employment claim

White House Press
Secretary Sarah Sanders
Alex
Wong/Getty Images

• White House press secretary Sarah Sanders pointed to
  the growth of black employment under President Donald Trump as
  a defense against former top White House aide Omarosa
  Manigault Newman’s claims that the president may have used a
  racial slur.
• Sanders claimed that Trump has created 700,000 jobs for
  black people in his first year and a half, while Obama only
  created 195,000 in eight years.
• But according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly
  3 million more black people were employed at the end of Obama’s
  presidency than when he was sworn in.

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While rebuking claims made by former top White House
aide Omarosa Manigault Newman’s tell-all book about President
Donald Trump, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee
Sanders made an astounding claim about black job growth during
the president’s tenure.

As part of Sanders’ defense of the president during the press
briefing on Tuesday, the White House press secretary made the
eye-raising claim that Trump has already created more jobs for
black people than his predecessor President Barack Obama did in
two terms. From Sanders (emphasis ours):

“Just look at the economy alone, this president since he took
office — in the year and a half that he’s been here — has created
700,000 new jobs for African-Americans. That’s 700,000
African-Americans that are working now that weren’t working when
this president took place. When President Obama left, after eight
years in office — eight years in office — he had only created
195,000 jobs for African-Americans. President Trump, in
his first year and a half, has already tripled what President
Obama did in eight years.”

The only problem is that Sanders’ numbers for black job growth
under Obama appear to be way off base.

According to data from the Bureau of Labor
Statistics (BLS), the number of African-Americans employed
increased by 2,955,000 between January 2009 — when Obama
took office — and January 2017 — when Trump was sworn in as
president. Since Trump took over, the number has increased
another 708,000 according to the BLS.

So while Sanders’s numbers for black employment under Trump were
correct, the numbers for Obama were vastly under-counted.

Additionally, under Obama, the black
unemployment rate fell from a high of 16.8% in March 2010,
the depths of the recession, to 7.8% in January 2017. From
Obama’s inauguration to Trump inauguration, the black
unemployment rate fell 4.9 percentage points from 12.7% to 7.8%.
Since Trump took office, it has declined another 1.2 percentage
points from 7.8% to 6.6%.

It also not immediately clear where Sanders’s 195,000 number came
from.

Through July 2010, a comparable point in Obama’s first term to
Trump’s current position, black employment actually dropped
474,000 as the recession took its toll on the economy. Through
the entirety of Obama’s first term, black employment increased
roughly 600,000.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.