Unemployment at 3.5 percent

This is part of the Trump's Accomplishments fact-check series, the Unprecedented Economic Boom section, and the world’s most prosperous economy subsection.

The Trump Administration claimed "The unemployment rate reached 3.5 percent, the lowest in a half-century." This page rates both claims.

Fact-Check: Accurate. Context-Resilient.
On Feb 2020, the unemployment rate was 3.5 percent. The prior time that happened was Nov 1969, 50 years and 3 months prior. Rated: Accurate.

It got kinda close in Apr 2000, at 3.8%. But unemployment below 4% is very rare.

The subcategory specifies "Before the China Virus," and it would have to. Unemployment soared to the highest rate since the Great Depression (14.8%) just 2 months later (Apr 2020). But it was lower than 3.8% for a full year (Mar 2020 to Apr 2020). Trump wanted unemployment and he got it. Rated: Context-Resilient.

World's Most Prosperous Economy? Essentially Accurate.
Is it the lowest unemployment rate in the world? No, the USA did not have the lowest unemployment in the world. Japan's was lower. But the USA did pretty good, and Japan is famously weird about unemployment. Rated: Essentially Accurate.

Unprecedented Boom? Speculative.
There's a reason we never see unemployment that low: economists wonder whether unemployment that low is even good for the economy. Unemployment is almost always over 5%, so you almost always hear that lower unemployment would be good. But, at least in theory, unfilled jobs mean work undone, business objectives delayed or failed, and a bit of economic slowdown.

Sources: 2020 - 2007 - 2006 - 1982

It's not really understood because it is very rare. When the Czech Republic averaged (!) an unemployment rate of 2.8% in the year after their split with Slovakia (1993). That was part of the transition out of the Soviet umbrella and into a capitalist economy, so perhaps it's not a very good comparison to the United States. More info. Japan's

Most Presidents decide at some point that unemployment is low enough, usually at around 4 or 5 percent, and focus on job growth, GDP growth, or inflation instead. Trump bucked that trend, and doubled down on very low unemployment as the solution to all our economic woes. He wanted to try a nation-sized economic experiment, and he accomplished the experiment. Economists have new data they probably wouldn't have seen under any other President. It will be interesting to see if expert analysis of the Trump Administration data settles the question of whether unemployment can be too low.

It's definitely is very low. But is that good for the economy? Even our best economists genuinely don't know. Rated: Speculative.