Thanks for the detailed response.

Tracking U6 is fine, but it also moves basically parallel to U3 and PAEPOP. His story of a worsening economy thanks to automation is wrong any way you slice it.

I support using the bully pulpit to share metrics other than GDP, which is what Obama did. I haven’t seen metrics but I don’t think he talked about GDP much at all, nor do most Democratic politicians. He’s not inventing something new here, but he is suggesting that other Democrats have been led amok by single measures.

While I don’t think scapegoating technology (and by proxy, technology workers — see San Francisco) is healthy, I agree it’s better than scapegoating immigrants. But he didn’t talk about immigrants not being the problem on this show, and he’s continued to focus on Latin American countries in making these economic comparisons. I’ve probably heard it close to a dozen times now, always the same four countries. Combine that with his exclusion of legal permanent residents from the Freedom Dividend (the main reason people come out behind from the policy), and I think it’s reason for him to think about his message.