Fact check: Are people who have stopped looking for work counted in the unemployment rate?

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• ABOUT FACT CHECK

December 23, 2016
By Cory Eucalitto

In a Fox News Sunday interview with host Chris Wallace, President-elect Donald Trump criticized the official unemployment rate as failing to provide a complete picture of the workforce. "[Y]ou look at what's going on—and you can look at a jobs report, but take a look at the real jobs report, which are the millions of people that gave up looking for work, and they're not considered in that number that's less than 5 percent."

Is Trump correct that the unemployment rate does not account for millions of people who have given up looking for work?

Yes. The official unemployment rate calculated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics excludes people who have not actively sought a job in the preceding four weeks, as they are no longer considered part of the civilian labor force.

Background

Trump's comment to Wallace is not the first time that he has challenged the utility of the unemployment rate. At a post-election rally in Des Moines, Iowa on December 8, he called the unemployment rate "total fiction" (which earned him four Pinocchios from the Washington Post's fact-checker feature).

After winning the New Hampshire primary, he told supporters not to "believe those phony numbers when you hear 4.9 and 5 percent unemployment. The number's probably 28, 29, as high as 35. In fact, I even heard recently 42 percent." (Politifact rated this claim as "Pants on Fire.")

However, Trump is correct in stating that the unemployment rate is a comparatively narrow measure.

The unemployment rate

The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes six measures of "labor underutilization" each month. In his critiques, Trump is referring to the BLS U-3 unemployment rate. That figure has hovered around 5 percent throughout 2016.

2016 Unemployment Rate by Month
Jan.	Feb.	Mar.	Apr.	May	June	July	Aug.	Sep.	Oct.	Nov.
4.9%	4.9%	5.0%	5.0%	4.7%	4.9%	4.9%	4.9%	5.0%	4.9%	4.6%

This unemployment rate is based on a monthly survey of 60,000 households, and including individuals age 16 and up.

According to the BLS, "People are considered employed if they did any work at all for pay or profit during the survey reference week," including all part-time and temporary work, regular full-time, year-round employment, and if a person has a job which they did not work during the survey week due to factors like illness, parental leave, or a labor dispute.

People are classified as unemployed "if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work."

The total of employed and unemployed people makes up the civilian labor force. The unemployment rate, then, "reflects the number of unemployed people as a percentage of the labor force."

Trump is correct that people who "gave up looking for work" are not counted in this unemployment rate. A person who has not actively looked for work for more than 4 weeks is not designated as either employed or unemployed.

Labor force participation

Americans outside of the labor force are counted in the “labor force participation rate.” The rate refers to the percentage of the population that is either working or actively seeking work.

Since the end of the most recent recession in June 2009 through November 2016, the unemployment rate has fallen from 9.5 percent to 4.6 percent. The labor force participation rate has fallen, too, though, from 65.7 percent in June 2009 to 62.7 percent in November 2016.

Conclusion

In a December interview with Fox News, Donald Trump criticized the relatively low unemployment rate as deceptive, saying, "take a look at the real jobs report, which are the millions of people that gave up looking for work, and they're not considered in that number that's less than 5 percent."

Trump is correct. The unemployment rate does not count people who have not looked for work in four weeks. These individuals are counted in the labor force participation rate, which at 62.7 percent is near the ten-year low of 62.4 percent.

See also

• Donald Trump on Labor and Employment
• U.S. Department of Labor

Launched in October 2015 and active through October 2018, Fact Check by Ballotpedia examined claims made by elected officials, political appointees, and political candidates at the federal, state, and local levels. We evaluated claims made by politicians of all backgrounds and affiliations, subjecting them to the same objective and neutral examination process. As of 2026, Ballotpedia staff periodically review these articles to revaluate and reaffirm our conclusions. Please email us with questions, comments, or concerns about these articles. To learn more about fact-checking, click here.

Sources and Notes

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