Black poverty, unemployment set record lows on Trump’s watch, and on Biden’s, too

As President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump vie for Black voters’ support, each has been touting their achievements benefiting Black workers and families.

During a June 15 visit to Detroit, Trump said, "We achieved the lowest African American unemployment rate and the lowest African American poverty rate ever recorded."

Record lows were achieved on his watch. But Trump leaves out that both of those records have since been surpassed under Biden.

Trends in the poverty rate

The Census Bureau has consistently tabulated data on poverty, including the breakdown by race and ethnicity, since 1966.

The Black poverty rate hit a record low during Trump’s presidency in 2019 at 18.8%. The poverty rate has fallen further under Biden’s presidency, hitting 17.1% in 2022, the last year for which data is available.

Trump’s 2019 record low was 3.2 percentage points lower than 2016’s, the final year of his predecessor, Barack Obama. Biden’s 2022 record low was 2.5 percentage points lower than 2020’s, Trump’s final year.

Because the Black poverty rate has generally been trending downward since the 1960s, numerous other presidents can claim to have achieved record lows on Black poverty during their tenure — including Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton, Obama, Trump and Biden. 

The slow but mostly steady decline in Black poverty stems from expansions of Social Security to cover occupations such as agricultural and domestic workers that had initially been excluded from the program, along with improved access to jobs and higher education driven by the Civil Rights Movement, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal-leaning think tank.

Arloc Sherman, the vice president for data analysis and research at the liberal Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, told PolitiFact that although poverty has fallen for all groups since 1970, "it fell more for Black and Latino people." 

He attributed this to a combination of safety net programs, which helped provide a minimum level of economic support for some low-income people, and federal investments in Head Start early education and federal K-12 programs, which have together worked to increase educational attainment and, in turn, earnings. 

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Bernie Sanders

stated on November 10, 2024 in an interview on CNN's "State of the Union"

Inflation-adjusted weekly wages “are lower today than they were 50 years ago.”

Similar pattern for the unemployment rate

It’s the same story for the Black unemployment rate.

In August and September 2019, when Trump was president, the Black unemployment rate hit a new record low of 5.3%.

But the rate was even lower for several months of Biden’s presidency, hitting its lowest point at 4.8% in April 2023.

Previously, both Nixon and Clinton could claim to have been serving as president during record-low months for Black unemployment.

Trump’s campaign told PolitiFact that the current Black unemployment rate of 6.1% in May is higher than Trump’s low of 5.3%.

Black unemployment has matched or been lower than 5.3% in five separate months under Biden: March, April, August and December 2023 and January 2024.

We previously rated Democratic strategist Donna Brazile Mostly True when she said that under Biden, "Black unemployment is the lowest in American history." Unlike Trump’s statement, Brazile’s didn’t leave out a subsequent record low under a successor president.

Our ruling

Trump said, "We achieved the lowest African American unemployment rate and the lowest African American poverty rate ever recorded."

Trump was president when both statistics reached record lows — but he leaves out that his successor and opponent, Biden, saw both of those record lows surpassed on his watch.

The statement is partially accurate but leaves out important information, so we rate it Half True.