Donald Trump on Jobs 2016 Republican incumbent President; 2000 Reform Primary Challenger for President

Sub-sections under Jobs:
• Casinos
• Other issues under Jobs

FactCheck: 9 million jobs offset by 22.2 million job loss

FactCheck: The economy did add about 9.3 million jobs combined in May, June and July -- but that record increase immediately followed a much bigger record loss of about 22.2 million jobs in March and April. The economy is still down nearly 13 million jobs because of the coronavirus crisis. (Also, many of the jobs added were simply people returning to work after temporary layoffs.)

Unemployment at record low, including women & disabled

• African-American poverty has declined to the lowest rate ever recorded.
• The veterans' unemployment rate dropped to a record low.
• The unemployment rate for disabled Americans has reached an all-time low.
• Workers without a high school diploma have achieved the lowest unemployment rate recorded in United States history.

Fact-Check: Job creation has increased, but at lower rate

Fact -Check: Trump here is mixing apples and oranges, comparing the labor force participation rate under President Obama with the number of jobs created under his own administration. But they are different numbers. It's true the participation rate fell from 65.7% to 62.9% during Obama's two terms in office, partly because the population was aging. It has since rebounded this year to 63.2%. But the economy also added 11.6 million jobs during Obama's two terms, and job creation has increased at a slightly slower rate under Trump.

FactCheck: Unemployment under Trump is lowest in decades

The video features Warren Gunnels, the senator's top aide on the Senate budget committee. Trump said in the SOTU speech, "unemployment has reached the lowest rate in over half a century." The official unemployment rate dropped as low as 3.7% in November--marking the first time it had been that low since 1969.

In the "fact-check" video, Gunnels says "the real unemployment rate--which includes those who have given up looking for work and those who are working part time when they need a full-time job--is 8.1%, not 4%." Gunnels is referring to the U-6, an "alternative measure of labor underutilization." Gunnels is right that the U-6 rate is 8.1%. But this is what he doesn't tell his viewers: Under Trump, the U-6 rate had dropped to its lowest level in 17 years, the lowest since April 2001.

600,000 new manufacturing jobs with rising blue-collar wages

Wages are rising at the fastest pace in decades, and growing for blue collar workers faster than anyone else. The economy is growing almost twice as fast today as when I took office, and we are considered far and away the hottest economy anywhere in the world.

Get Motor City revving its engines again

200,000 new manufacturing jobs with lowest unemployment ever

Fact-check: African-American unemployment lowest in history

NPR Fact-Check: Trump's numbers are right, but it's generally a stretch for presidents to take credit for job creation. The unemployment rate for black Americans is currently 6.8%, the lowest level recorded since the government started keeping track in 1972. And Hispanic unemployment rate is at 4.9%, close to a record low. However, Trump is implying that he caused these low African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates. But those rates had been falling relatively steadily since around 2010, under Pres. Obama, and their declines don't appear to have picked up speed. This implies that there's nothing specific that Trump did to change this rate

Two core principles: buy American, and hire American

This effort will be guided by two core principles: Buy American, and Hire American. Tonight, I am also calling on this Congress to repeal and replace ObamaCare with reforms that expand choice, increase access, lower costs, and provide better healthcare.

How do people make it on $7.25? Raise state minimum wage

In the past, Trump has opposed upping the minimum wage. But in recent days, he has increasingly warmed to the idea. "I have seen what's going on, and I don't know how people make it on $7.25," said Trump, referencing the federal minimum hourly wage. "With that being said, I would like to see an increase of some magnitude, but I'd rather leave it to the states. Let the states decide."

Speaking at a second interview, the business mogul said, "I haven't decided in terms of numbers, but I think people have to get more." He acknowledged that he was putting forth a position at odds with his previous stance. "Sure, it's a change. I'm allowed to change. You need flexibility," he said.

I'm the only one on this stage who's hired people

TRUMP: As far as the people I've hired in Florida during the prime season, you could not get help. People didn't want to have part-time jobs. There were part-time jobs, very seasonal, 90-day jobs, 120-day jobs. I'm the only one on the stage that's hired people. You haven't hired anybody.

Bring jobs back from China, Mexico, Japan, and Vietnam

Don't raise minimum wage; it makes us non-competitive

DONALD TRUMP: I can't be. We are a country that is being beaten on every front economically & militarily. There is nothing that we do now to win. We don't win anymore. [If our] wages are too high, we're not going to be able to compete against the world. I hate to say it, but we have to leave it the way it is. People have to work really hard and have to get into that upper stratum. But we can not do this if we are going to compete with the rest of the world. We just can't do it.

Q: So do not raise the minimum wage?

TRUMP: I would not do it.

CARSON: Every time we raise the minimum wage, the number of jobless people increases.

MARCO RUBIO: If I thought that raising the minimum wage was the best way to help people increase their pay, I would be all for it, but it isn't. If you raise the minimum wage, you're going to make people more expensive than a machine.

I have relevant experience by creating jobs and assets

Teachers unions are obstacles to improving schools

When there is a legitimate complaint against a teacher in the New York system, rather than having a quick hearing to determine the validity of the complaint, teachers are assigned to an area known as "the rubber room" while they wait for their hearing.

And they wait. They sit in empty classrooms or converted closets and do nothing--but still get paid their whole salary. Some teachers spend several years waiting. No wonder they call it the rubber room--the whole concept is insane.

Rebuilding America will create 13 million jobs

A few years ago, Moody's, the financial investment agency, calculated that every $1 of federal money invested in improving the infrastructure for highways and public schools would guarantee $1.44 back to the economy. Infrastructure investments have one of the strongest direct economic impacts.

You know why that is? Jobs. These projects put people to work--not just the people doing the work, but also the manufacturers, the suppliers, the designers, and yes, even the lawyers. The Senate Budget Committee estimates that rebuilding America will create 13 million jobs. Our economy needs more available jobs.

If we do what we have to do correctly, we can create the biggest economic boom in this country since the New Deal when our vast infrastructure was first put into place. It's a no-brainer. It's so obvious that even the Democrats can figure it out.

Don't raise minimum wage, but create more opportunities

TRUMP: I want to keep the minimum wage pretty much where it is right now. Because of the fact that we have a country that is now competing more than ever before because of airplanes, and transportation, and the internet. If we raise it we're not going to be able to compete with the rest of the world. What I do want to do is bring in jobs so much so that people don't have to live on minimum wage. But we are going to have to compete with the rest of the world.

Take jobs back from foreign countries to lower unemployment

We have to take back jobs from Japan, and Vietnam, and Mexico, and virtually everybody that's taking our jobs and ruining our manufacturing base. And we have to put people to work. Because the real unemployment number is probably 21%. People give up looking for jobs. And they no longer become a statistic. And it's very unfair. So we have to put our country back to work. We have to get great jobs for people and good paying jobs for people. And we're going to be just fine.

Real unemployment rate is 20%; don't believe 5.6%

Our labor participation rate was the worst since 1978. But think of it, GDP below zero, horrible labor participation rate. Our real unemployment is anywhere from 18% to 20%. Don't believe the 5.6%. The real number is anywhere from 18% to maybe even 21%, and nobody talks about it, because it's a statistic that's full of nonsense.

Raising business tax causes businesses to move jobs overseas

Keep loyal hardworking people around as long as they'd like

Unions fight for pay; managers fight for less; consumers win

What we all want is monopoly-dominance in our chosen line of work that allows us to call the tune. No one really wants to compete-they have to in order to survive. Everyone pursues monopoly, the system prevents it, and the results is the world’s most competition-intensive economy. Who wins? Consumers do. They get more choice and more quality at lower cost.

Foreign companies are taking jobs from US

1990: fined $65,000 for money-laundering via casino chips

The gray chips were not to gamble-but were another emergency strategy to funnel cash to Fred's hard-pressed son. But if he simply gave the money as a gift, it would be siphoned off to the Castle's many creditors. Depositing the cash into a gambling account was a way to sidestep them.

Years later, Trump contended that propping up the Castle with millions in his father's chips had been Fred's idea. "My father said, 'Oh, let me do it, it's easy with the chips,'" Trump said. As unprecedented as the episode was, the New Jersey casino commission concluded that it had violated only a rule intended to keep organized crime out of Atlantic City. The commission unanimously voted to fine Trump Castle $65,000.

Opposed to casinos on Indian reservations

In 1993 he got into a shouting match at a congressional hearing as he insisted that tribal casinos were courting "the biggest scandal since Al Capone. Organized crime is rampant on Indian reservations. People know it; people talk about it. It's going to blow." Trump also said of the tribal representatives at the meeting, "They don't look like Indians to me, and they don't look like Indians to Indians." After the hearing an Indian leader accused Trump of "economic racism."

FactCheck: Yes, Trump wanted a casino, and Jeb opposed it

That's when Trump cut him off--and failed to tell the truth. "I didn't," Trump said. But for more than 21 years, Trump did. He and his company have repeatedly been on record trying to get casino deals in one form or another in Florida.

Trump didn't just stop with his one false denial. He doubled down. Immediately after Trump said "I didn't" want casinos in Florida, Bush corrected him: "Yes you did. You wanted it and you didn't get it because I was opposed."

Trump, cutting him off: "[If I'd wanted it], I promise I would have gotten it."

Wrong again. As early as 1994, just before Florida voters rejected expanded gambling, Trump told The Miami Herald: "I'm going to be the first one to open up if Floridians vote for them."

2013: Failed to persuade Florida legislators on large casino

As early as 1994, Trump [said he would open a casino if voters approved it]. A decade later, Florida approved casinos. Today, Florida has 15 of them. None are owned by Trump. But he tried after he bought the Doral Golf Resort & Spa near Miami and joined the failed fight to have lawmakers approve new, large "destination-resort" casinos. "If Miami doesn't do casinos, that would be a terrible mistake," Trump told The Miami Herald in 2013. But Trump didn't get what he wanted.

First Atlantic City casino ever finished on-time & on-budget

The second way we saved money was by producing very complete plans, so that contractors could bid on every aspect of the job.

The final thing that helped us keep costs down the state of the construction industry in Atlantic City in the spring of 1982. Thousands of local construction workers were either out of work or about to be. That gave us a lot of leverage with contractors. I wasn't looking to force these guys to make such bad deals that they'd lose money. On the other hand, I was in a position to negotiate very reasonable prices.

I got the building finished right on schedule. It represented the first casino-hotel in Atlantic City ever built on time and on budget.