Trump's promises of new jobs were false 99.991% of the time

When it comes to Trump’s promises about creating jobs, he lies 99.991% of the time.

According to a ProPublica investigation into Trump’s repeated promises about creating new jobs, Trump’s failures far outweigh his successes.

Since election day in 2016, Trump has made 35 specific promises about creating new jobs through his policies and actions. In total, Trump gave his word that 8.9 million new jobs were imminent. But a thorough investigation of each of those claims reveals that Trump only came through for 797 jobs, or 0.001% of what he promised.

For example, in May 2017, Trump said that “millions of jobs” would be created because of deals he bragged about making with Saudi Arabia. Since then, not a single job in the United States has been created. At best, ProPublica reports that 18,000 of these jobs — or 1.8% of what Trump promised — might come at some time in the future.

In February 2019, Trump promised 6.5 million new jobs through a White House initiative called Pledge to America’s Workers. But instead of 6.5 million new jobs, not a single new job came from the initiative, which focused more on training and skill-building among existing workers.

In some cases, Trump tried to take credit for jobs that companies had already planned on creating. In March 2017, Trump bragged about 45,000 new jobs ExxonMobil created in the Gulf Coast area. In reality, ExxonMobil was just continuing their investment plan from 2013, when President Obama was in the White House.

In fact, Trump often tried to take credit for the economic success of his predecessor. In a 2018 rally in Indiana, Trump bragged about the low unemployment rate that economists credit to President Obama’s policies.

Trump’s false promises about jobs are part of a pattern of lies and misinformation regularly streaming from Trump. The Washington Post has cataloged more than 10,000 lies and false statements uttered by Trump since he took office. And the pace of Trump’s lying has dramatically increased in recent months.

In the seven months ending on April 26, 2019, Trump told a lie almost once an hour — 23 lies per day.

Trump’s dishonesty is nothing new, especially when it comes to the economy. In reality, the U.S. economy added more jobs in President Obama’s final 24 months (202,417 jobs per month) compared to Trump’s first 24 months (188,542 jobs per month), according to ProPublica.

But rather than face the truth, Trump prefers to just lie. And lie. And then lie some more.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.