Analysis: If you include people who have left the work force, unemploy...

12y ago Sep 20, 2013 at 2:00 PM

If you include people who have left the work force, unemployment rate is 15%. Labor participation rate is lowest in 70 yrs.

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AI Analysis

Machine-generated analysis of the post above on 2026-02-26. Not written by the author of the post.

Danger Level

None

Narcissistic State

Grandiose

Authorship

Uncertain

Intensity

20%

Authorship Analysis

Aide-Written

Indicators:

Posted at 10:00 AM EDT — squarely within business hours, primary aide indicator
Clean grammar and correct punctuation, no typos
Specific statistics (15%, 70 years) suggest staff research
No ALL CAPS, no emotional outbursts, no stream-of-consciousness fragments
Same-day authentic Trump tweets show more emotional register by contrast

Psychological Profile

▶ State

Grandiose State

Trigger: Maintenance (ACA/government shutdown political environment; House CR vote same day)

Sentiment

-0.45

▶ Clinical

Malignant Narcissism:

Narcissistic

25%

Antisocial

10%

Paranoid

20%

Sadism

Defense Mechanisms:

rationalizationdistortion

Cognitive Complexity:

Complexity

35%

Parasocial Techniques:

Positioning as insider who knows the 'real' economic figures unavailable to ordinary followersImplied shared grievance with 'people who have left the work force'

Fact Checks (2)

"If you include people who have left the work force, unemployment rate is 15%"

Mostly False

The BLS U-6 unemployment rate for September 2013 was 13.5% (August 2013: 13.6%) per FRED/BLS data. The claim overstates the actual broader unemployment figure by approximately 1.5 percentage points. The underlying point — that the U-6 rate was meaningfully higher than the headline U-3 rate of 7.2% — is accurate; the specific 15% figure is exaggerated.

"Labor participation rate is lowest in 70 yrs"

Mostly False

The LFPR in fall 2013 (~63.2%) was at a multi-decade low. Contemporaneous analysis — including from Republican-aligned sources motivated to make the strongest possible case — described it as a 35-year low (since the Carter/early-Reagan era, late 1970s to early 1980s). The 70-year claim would place the comparison in 1943 (WWII peak), which is historically implausible given women's subsequent labor force entry. The underlying concern about a historically low LFPR is legitimate; the 70-year framing doubles the actual historical magnitude.

Receipts

No contradictions with other posts detected yet.

Post Analysis: September 20, 2013 — Economic Statistics Tweet

Authorship Attribution

Posted at 14:00:25 UTC, which converts to 10:00 AM EDT in New York City — Trump's base of operations in September 2013 (Trump Tower). This is squarely within business hours, the primary indicator of aide composition. Supporting the aide hypothesis: grammatically clean construction, correct punctuation, no ALL CAPS passages, no visible typos, and the citation of specific statistics (15%, 70 years) consistent with research-supported staff drafting. The economic critique of the Obama administration is ideologically authentic to Trump's 2013 political positioning, but the polished delivery diverges from his characteristically impulsive, stream-of-consciousness authentic posts. The surrounding same-day tweets ("Defund!", "Congrats @EricTrump!") show more emotional variability, suggesting authentic Trump — whereas this statistical post is more measured. Assessment: Aide-drafted on Trump's behalf, reflecting his political views, with moderate confidence.

Psychological State & Trigger

No acute narcissistic injury is identifiable in this post. The political context — the House had just passed a CR to defund the ACA, setting up a government shutdown showdown — provides the environmental trigger, but the post itself is maintenance in character: routine brand-building as an economically astute political commentator. Trump spent much of 2013 positioning himself as an Obama critic, and economic statistics were a favored rhetorical tool. The post functions as supply-seeking through political identity performance: "I know the real numbers; the official story is incomplete."

Narcissistic Dynamics

Mild, baseline grandiosity: the implicit self-cast as a truth-teller who sees through the official unemployment figures. This is consistent with a characteristic Level 2 adaptation — the schema that insiders and establishment figures obscure inconvenient reality, while the subject alone (or those aligned with him) perceives the truth. No rage is present. The narcissistic state is lightly grandiose rather than vulnerable.

Defense Mechanisms

Rationalization (neurotic): The selective deployment of the U-6 broader unemployment measure — presented as simply "including" overlooked workers — frames a tendentious statistical choice as objective transparency. The logic sounds reasonable; the framing obscures an ideological selection.

Mild distortion (immature/pathological boundary): The actual U-6 rate for September 2013 was 13.5% (BLS/FRED confirmed); the post claims 15%, inflating the figure by ~1.5 percentage points. Similarly, the LFPR "lowest in 70 years" claim misrepresents what the data showed — the Joint Economic Committee Republicans, themselves motivated to make this argument, described it in September 2013 as a 35-year low (since the Carter era/early 1980s), not 70 years.

Rhetorical Techniques

Hidden truth framing: "If you include people who have left the work force" positions the speaker as surfacing suppressed or deliberately ignored data. Implies the official figure is deliberately incomplete.
Implied institutional deception: The gap between the stated "real" 15% and the official headline creates an inference of government dishonesty without explicitly asserting it.
Pseudo-precision: Citing specific percentages and time horizons ("70 yrs") lends false empirical credibility to what are, in fact, exaggerated approximations.
Populist framing: Centering the workers "who have left the workforce" invokes the invisible, forgotten worker — a proto-MAGA rhetorical move that would become central to his 2015–16 political identity.
Abbreviation economy ("70 yrs"): A Twitter-era compression that reads as spontaneous but in this case accompanies statistical inflation, not accuracy.

Fact Verification

Claim	Verdict	Evidence
"If you include people who have left the work force, unemployment rate is 15%"	Mostly False	The BLS U-6 unemployment rate for September 2013 was 13.5% (August 2013: 13.6%) per FRED/BLS data. The claim overstates the actual broader unemployment figure by approximately 1.5 percentage points. The underlying point — that the U-6 rate was meaningfully higher than the headline U-3 rate of 7.2% — is accurate; the specific 15% figure is exaggerated.
"Labor participation rate is lowest in 70 yrs"	Mostly False	The LFPR in fall 2013 (~63.2%) was at a multi-decade low. Contemporaneous analysis — including from Republican-aligned sources motivated to make the strongest possible case — described it as a 35-year low (since the Carter/early-Reagan era, late 1970s to early 1980s). The 70-year claim would place the comparison in 1943 (WWII peak), which is historically implausible given women's subsequent labor force entry. The underlying concern about a historically low LFPR is legitimate; the 70-year framing doubles the actual historical magnitude.

Overall Veracity: 20%