CHRIS CUOMO (CO-HOST): Democrats want to talk about the state of the U.S. economy at the convention. But, the son of Republican nominee, Donald Trump, is suggesting to CNN's Jake Tapper that the country's unemployment rate does not reflect the real story.

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DONALD TRUMP JR.: These are artificial numbers, Jake. These are numbers that are massaged to make the existing economy to look good, to make this administration look good, when in fact it’s a total disaster. 

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CUOMO: Donald Trump Jr., exercised over this issue. Let's bring in chief business correspondent Christine Romans here at the CNN Grill. Nobody knows the numbers like Christine Romans and CNN Money now. What do you make of the argument? 

CHRISTINE ROMANS: I’m sad to say, but I've been looking at these numbers, Chris, for 20 years now. Nine million jobs have been created in the past four years, and the jobless rate, you look at the chart, it has dropped from above 10 percent during the great recession to 4.9 percent now. It’s not tampered with. It’s all very transparent. That headline number, that 4.9 percent, it is the standard, Chris. It is the standard economists and presidents of both parties use as an overall measure for joblessness. What is that number? It counts the people who are out of work, and the people who are out of work and looking for a new job. That, by definition, is what we're talking about here. The labor market, people who are looking for work or are working. The unemployment rate measures people in that labor market. It’s all right there. It’s all transparent. The Labor Department releases pages and pages of tables and numbers every month, breaking those numbers down by jobless rate, the jobless rate by education, by race, by time spent unemployed. Now, Trump has claimed, Chris, it’s really 25 percent -- not 5 percent -- or 42 percent. He has said it really is depression-era unemployment. That is just not true. What is true: Millions of Americans are not even in the labor market any more. That is true and you can see that in this number. This is the labor force participation rate. This is a number that has been moving down, down, down, down, about 62.7 percent. Some of this is because of baby boomers, they are retiring, 10,000 of them every day turn 65. Other people are at home with their kids. Some people are not looking for a job because it costs too much for daycare. Some people are on disability, some people are going to college, some people just aren't working. The labor market is very big, Chris, but unemployed, the number of people who are unemployed, not everybody who’s out of the labor market is unemployed. So, you're going to hear these accusations of massaging the numbers. It’s not a scandal, Chris, it’s statistics. And it’s all right there.

Previously:

CNN's Christine Romans Fact-Checks Donald Trump's False Unemployment Rate Claims

 

Bill O'Reilly Lets Donald Trump Push Conspiracy That 4.9 Percent Unemployment Rate Is A “Phony Number”

 

On CNN, Art Laffer Defends Trump's Lies About Unemployment And His Laughable Plan To Eliminate National Debt