by Calculated Risk on 1/11/2017 07:44:00 PM

From CNBC's Steve Liesman: Donald Trump's colossal error on jobs during his press conference

Trump said that there "are 96 million wanting a job and they can't get (one). You know that story. The real number. That's the real number."

It is unfortunately very far from the real number. There are in fact 96 million Americans age 16 and older who are not in the labor force. Of this, just 5.4 million, or 91 million fewer than the number cited by Trump, say they want a job. The rest are retired, sick, disabled, running their households or going to school.

This is a serious problem. Trump is at war with the data. There is a concern that Trump (and Congress) will defund the BLS and other data gathering agencies if he doesn't like what they report.