Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — Two Jobs Gaffe

In an interview segment discussing the economy, primarily the unemployment rate, Ocasio-Cortez dismissed claims that the economy is strong because of a historically low unemployment rate because “unemployment is low because everyone has two jobs. Unemployment is low because people are working 60, 70, 80 hours a week and can barely feed their family.”

The issue with this claim is, namely, that the unemployment rate does not distinguish between the number of hours that people are working, nor the number of jobs they hold. While there are a narrow set of rules to be considered unemployed, only about 5% of Americans currently hold multiple jobs:

While politicians routinely make mistakes regarding the economy (1, 2), this gaffe is particularly note-worthy because Ocasio-Cortez holds a bachelors degree in economics from Boston University.

2018 1

John Stossel — Spontaneous Order

In this Stossel in the Classroom segment, John Stossel analyzes political promises and looks at how government intervention actually can harm business. A good portion of the video focuses on how the invisible hand dictates much of what we see occurring in our lives and how centrally planned economies like the Soviet Union break down.

2017 0

CNN Debate: Donald Trump Doesn’t Understand the BLS

During the CNN GOP Debate in March, Donald Trump incorrectly categorizes discouraged workers as being statistically part of the employment rate because they are no longer considered unemployed. This classic mistake forgets that there are a class of people in the country who are not in the labor force.

2016 1