Trump thanks Kanye West, cites black employment gains
President Donald Trump touted on Friday an April jobs report that included the lowest unemployment rate recorded this century.
Trump, speaking at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention, said black unemployment reached another all-time low and thanked rapper Kanye West for his supportive comments on Twitter.
“Kanye West must have some power,” Trump told the crowd in Dallas. “I double my African-American poll numbers; we went from 11% to 22%. Thank you, Kanye. When I saw the number, I thought that must be a mistake.”
The unemployment rate among African-Americans dropped in April to 6.6%, the lowest since the Labor Department began keeping track in 1972.
The overall unemployment rate slipped below 4% for the first time since 2000, hitting 3.9% as job growth accelerated and some workers left the labor force.
“As a result of our massive tax cuts, and everybody is benefiting, and everybody is happy,” Trump said. “Since the election, we’ve created 3.2 million jobs. Unthought of. If we’d said that three years ago during the campaign, people would have said, what a horrible exaggeration.”
The president added that hiring in other demographics, including Hispanics and women, has also picked up.
“So we have the best unemployment numbers we’ve virtually ever had, and all we hear about is this phony Russia witch hunt,” he said.
U.S. employers added 164,000 jobs last month, up from a revised estimate of 135,000 new jobs in March. The initial reading on March hiring was 103,000.
Average hourly earnings rose a modest 0.1%, while the annual rate of wage growth remained at 2.6%.