Tonight, Mike Pence once again claimed that more Hoosiers are working today than ever. It’s a useful talking point—but a completely misleading and false statistic.
LIE: “There’s more Hoosiers going to work than ever before.”
THE TRUTH
PolitiFact: As a share of Indiana’s population, the percentage of residents working was higher in 2000 than in 2016.
Literally, Pence has a point: More Indiana residents are employed now than at any time in the past. But it’s a data point with very little meaning, since, as any statistician will tell you, it doesn’t take into account the size of the state’s population. Looking instead at the percentage of Hoosiers working shows that the percentage was higher during the previous employment peak in 2000. And the widely used unemployment rate — which is even more precise because it is based on the number of residents who are actively looking for a job — has been lower than its current rate over long stretches of recent history.