At the moment, Democrats are faced with a problem they have not faced since 1988: running to take the White House from the Republicans at a time when the economy has clearly been growing. It is true that the economy hasn’t hit the marks that Donald Trump and his advisers promised, such as a 3% annual growth rate. It is true, as well, that there are some signs of economic weakness…

To the extent they have talked about the economy at all during the debates, the Democrats have tried to tell Americans that they are actually miserable. Senator Kamala Harris of California ripped into Trump for pointing out the growth of the stock market since he took office: “Well, that’s fine if you own stocks. So many families in America do not. You ask him, how are you measuring the greatness of this economy of yours? And they point to the jobless numbers and the unemployment numbers. Well, yeah, people in America are working. They’re working two and three jobs. So when we talk about jobs, let’s be really clear. In our America, no one should have to work more than one job to have a roof over their head and food on the table.”

This line of attack fails on two counts. First, the unemployment rate is a better indicator of the strength of the economy than how many Americans work multiple jobs. Second, today only 5.2% of employed Americans work more than one job, a proportion that has slightly fallen since the boom economy of the late 1990s.