Recently, President Donald Trump lashed out at Jay-Z on Twitter by claiming that he is responsible for bringing African-American unemployment numbers to their lowest point, which is something that he has been keen to mention. This particular tweet seems to have been prompted by a recent interview with Jay-Z conducted by CNN’s Van Jones, in which Jones asked Jay-Z about whether he thought it was acceptable for the President to improve economic circumstances for African-Americans while making offensive statements about African-Americans. To this question, Jay-Z answered a very clear “No” by pointing out that what matters most to people isn’t money but rather happiness, meaning that money is a lesser concern in the sense that it is one of the factors that contribute to happiness. As he sees it, not screwing up economic policies that improved unemployment numbers for African-Americans was not enough to make up for the lack of respect coming from the President of the United States, who has made a number of comments that were not well-regarded by said community, with examples ranging from what he has said about black communities to black NFL players.
The point about not screwing up economic policies is particularly important because it illustrates an important problem with Trump’s claims about African-American unemployment numbers. Simply put, it is true that African-American unemployment numbers are at their lowest point, but there is no real evidence to suggest that the fall can be attributed to Trump’s economic policies. After all, they have been falling since 2010. Moreover, the fall in African-American unemployment numbers does not stand out compared to the fall in unemployment numbers for other ethnicities in 2017, meaning that there is no real reason to believe that Trump can claim the credit. This is particularly true because the effects of economic policies on the economy do not happen all at once, meaning that it will take time to see how Trump’s economic policies have affected the economic circumstances of the United States as a whole as well as the economic circumstances of African-Americans in particular.
With that said, no doubt that there are people who are wondering whether this will lead to a feud of some sort between Trump and Jay-Z. Certainly, Trump has a reputation for holding grudges against people who go against him, as shown by Trump’s strange choice to send photos of himself with his hands highlighted with a gold sharpie on a semi-regular basis to a journalist who once said that he has short fingers. However, considering the sheer number of people who have spoken out against Trump, it would be remarkable for Trump to engage in a full-fledged feud with Jay-Z in particular considering the amount of free time that should be available to him. After all, Trump is supposed to be the President of the United States, which historically speaking, is not supposed to provide its occupants with a great deal of spare time. With that said, that seems to be another precedent that Trump is breaking, though in this particular case, that might actually be for the best.
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