Trump vs. Jay-Z and the truth about black unemployment

After months of being criticized by prominent members of the hip-hop community from Eminem to Y.G., Trump took to Twitter on Sunday to respond to an interview conducted by CNN’s Van Jones with Shawn Carter, better known as Jay-Z.

During the interview which aired on Saturday evening, Carter said that the president’s characterization of developing countries like Haiti or several African nations as “shithole countries” were concerning and troublesome.

“Everyone feels anger, but after the anger, it’s really hurtful because he’s looking down on a whole population of people and he’s so misinformed because these places have beautiful people,” Carter told Jones.

Trump responded to the interview by saying how much he’s done for the black community reflected by the black unemployment rate.

While it’s undeniable that Trump currently presides over a nation with the lowest black unemployment rate at least in the last 10 years at 6.8 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, it wasn’t his doing that caused this trend. It was the work of the previous administration under former President Barack Obama.

The last time black unemployment was this low was in August 2007 (7.6 percent) when former President George W. Bush was still serving in office. After the stock market crashed and the housing bubble burst in the fall of 2008, black unemployment shot up to as high as 16.8 percent in March 2010 before Obama took that number down to 7.8 percent in January 2017, which was his last month in office.

This is not to say that Trump hasn’t done anything for the black community. He has. But the GOP tax cuts apply to everyone and have just only taken effect. We won’t see the real impact of cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 to 21 percent and seeing the income tax burden shift from the lower and middle classes to the wealthy until later this year. Individuals will start seeing how much money they’re saving from lower taxes in February at the very earliest.

Lowering the corporate tax rate should help employers and startups pay less in overhead and either take home more money or hire a few more employees, some of whom will undoubtedly be African-American, so it’s beneficial for everyone in business.

But the issue is not Trump taking credit for something his predecessor helped start, if anything, it’s his embrace of big government under Obama that might be more concerning. Between the Wall Street and auto industry bailouts and the 2009 stimulus package that dumped well over $800 billion into the private sector to save and create jobs, Obama established himself as a big government president early on.

Trump shouldn’t be taking credit for the black unemployment rate not only because it’s misleading, but also because he doesn’t even believe the numbers are accurate. Back in October 2012, Trump called the unemployment numbers fraudulent.

If his supporters plan on dismissing Trump’s tweet and say that he’s evolved on the subject now that he’s president, then I have to retort by saying, “is he now pro-big government?”

If he plans on carrying out his agenda through the legislature rather than executive power, then we can relax. But if he thinks Obama’s tactics as president worked, then what parts of the law is he willing to ignore in order to get where he wants the country to go? Either way, this revelation is concerning.

Siraj Hashmi is a commentary video editor and writer for the Washington Examiner.