Sen. Bernie, I-Vt., argued Thursday that the current real unemployment rate is unacceptable, and said during a stump speech for Hillary Clinton that too many people have given up looking for work.
“Real unemployment remains much too high,” the Vermont lawmaker said at a campaign rally in Youngstown, Ohio. “If you add people who don’t have any jobs, with people who are working part-time but they want to work full-time.”
“People have given up looking for work in high-unemployment areas,” he added.
His comment is a criticism of sorts of the recovery under President Obama, although Sanders, Clinton and Obama himself have said during the campaign that the economy could do better, especially if Democrats are put in charge of Congress and the White House.
Sanders said that as unacceptable as the unemployment rate has become, things would likely become far worse under GOP nominee Donald Trump than Clinton.
Real unemployment, which includes the unemployed, the underemployed and the discouraged, was 9.7 percent in September, according to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics.
