He wasn't fudging anything, his phrasing was
> ~18% of their working age people *do not have jobs*
Which is a correct interpretation of participation rate. His theory on the causes may be off, but his numbers weren't
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His theory on the cause is wrong, and using the wrong number is dishonest here. I agree he more or less correctly cited labor force participation rate (still basically the best in the world) but badly misrepresented what that number is such that he should be apologizing and not doubling down. Dishonest.
I actually think we should only be using labor force metrics for everything, if someone stops looking because their depressed and can live at home - suddenly that's ok? I don't think we should stop counting people like that
The problem is differentiating between those who've given up and who do not want to work (have other means to sustain themselves).
In general, either is fine by me as long we are consistent: they are both proxies for percentage of people needing work and should correlate to a large extent.