On Tuesday, Democratic candidate Senator Kamala Harris told a Washington, DC forum that the reason President Trump's economy has such low unemployment is that "people are...working two or three jobs." This talking point has been said recently by Democratic candidates and officials but the only problem with it is that the data shows it is not true. In fact, the percentage of those working multiple jobs in the workforce is lower than the historical average.
Speaking on Tuesday at the Poor People's Campaign presidential forum, Senator Harris went over a bevy of issues relating to the economy. The California Senator told the crowd, "They talk about the employment rate. Well, yeah people are working. They're working two or three jobs."
"And in our America, nobody should have to work more than one job to have a roof over their head and food on the table," she added.
Well, good news for Senator Harris because the vast majority of those employed are not working multiple jobs. The current percentage of employees working multiple jobs sits at roughly 5.0 percent.
This has been the case since January 2010 under President Obama. President Trump has maintained this percent since he first took office and it is down from the historic high of 6.3 three percent in 1996.
Recent figures show that 151 million Americans are employed. This means approximately 7 million to 8 million employees are working multiple jobs. The data provided for these figures by the Federal Reserve Economic Data (FRED) can be seen below.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member