Dear John,

In 2021, President Biden inherited an economy in tatters from Donald Trump, but today unemployment is at 3.7%. The economy grew faster in 2023 than any year under Trump. Inflation has fallen from a 40-year high of 9.1% in June 2022 to just 3.1% last month.

What’s Trump's response to all this? He says the numbers are all “fake,” “phony,” “made up.” The “deep state,” he says, is cooking the books.

Rubbish.

As a former secretary of labor, I can assure you these numbers are no hoax. But the mainstream media does such a terrible job explaining the economy that most Americans don’t know who to believe.

This is exactly why I co-founded Inequality Media Civic Action — to help everyday people understand the truth and see through the lies. And that mission has never been more needed than it is right now.

Will you make a donation to help spread the truth and counter Trump’s lies about the economy?

Donald Trump tells a lot of lies — so many we could never fact-check them all. But the economy is such an important issue for voters that we cannot let these lies go unchallenged. And Trump’s lies about the economy are truly breathtaking.

During his 2016 campaign, when the official unemployment rate was around 5%, Trump claimed it was really 22%, or even as high as 42%.

Last September, he told an audience in South Dakota, “Now you’re given phony numbers ... They throw around 3.5%, 3.6%, 3.7%, but it’s a different group of people. ... So it’s a fake number.”

Of course, when government statistics make Trump look good, he says they’re real. But otherwise, he says they’re made up.

This is all complete nonsense. The monthly unemployment figure is subject to a range of checks and balances. Tens of thousands of people are involved in constructing and reviewing it and comparing each new figure with seven decades of data that came before it.

But how are everyday Americans to know the truth when the mainstream media’s wrong-headed definition of “balance” gives equal weight to Trump’s lies and fact-based government data?

That’s where Inequality Media Civic Action comes in. We’ve spent years building a massive following across social media and figuring out how to use viral content and video explainers to communicate complex economic information to people on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter/X, Facebook, and more.

We must stop Trump’s lies about the economy, but we’re counting on small donations from everyday people like you to help power our work. Will you make a donation today?

Yes, I’ll make a donation to help spread the truth and counter Trump’s lies about the economy.

Thank you for helping us defend our democracy,

Robert Reich
Inequality Media Civic Action