Was Trump right that 94 million Americans are out of the labor force?
"We must honestly acknowledge the circumstances we inherited," President Trump declared, as he listed a series of problems the country faces.
First on the list: "94 million Americans are out of the labor force."
Sounds like an ominously large number. Is it accurate?
Well, if you include roughly 41 million who are retired, yes. You also have to include about 15 million students who are not looking for work. Homemakers make up another big chunk.
In short, while a large number of Americans don't work, most of those who aren't working have good, traditional reasons for not doing so.
Hiding behind Trump's misleading statistic is a real issue: The share of Americans who are in the labor force has gone down in recent years.
Some of the decline comes from the aging of the huge baby boom generation, now moving into retirement. But part of the decline also represents people who have dropped out because they can't find jobs that pay enough.
Economists differ about how many of those discouraged workers exist and whether that number is still on the rise.