Sears: “Actually, unemployment is down”
 
Shannon Bream: “Data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics [...] [shows] that when you took office, there was a 2.7% unemployment rate and that it's now 3.6.”
 

VIRGINIA – In an interview on FOX News Sunday, Winsome Earle-Sears was caught in an outright lie about Virginia’s unemployment rate claiming “unemployment is down.” Fox host Shannon Bream then pointed out that data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics shows the unemployment rate increasing from 2.7% to 3.6% while Sears has been Lt Governor. This year, unemployment in Virginia rose for seven straight months – the longest stretch since the 2008 Great Recession.
 
WATCH HERE: 
 

 
Transcript: 

• Shannon Bream: So let's talk about the employment situation here in Virginia, because, the truth is, a lot of jobs [inaudible] live in Northern Virginia and throughout the Commonwealth. They've lost their jobs because of DOGE and other cutting. Your opponent has pointed to that. She said this, that my opponent, Winsome Earle-Sears, has defended Trump's firing of Virginia workers at every turn. She says you don't take the economic consequences of DOGE and what President Trump is doing seriously. And she points out unemployment is up under the Youngkin-Sears administration. So how do you answer that?
• Winsome Earle-Sears: Actually, unemployment is down. [...]
• Bream: She does point to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which we hope is going to be non-partisan and neutral, showing that when you took office, there was a 2.7% unemployment rate and that it's now 3.6. Do you quibble with the data?
• Sears: Well, what I'm telling you is that we're creating jobs.[..] So how is it possible that, you know, we have to figure out what is the data? What are they measuring? I don't know. I don't know where they're getting their stats from. I haven't seen what your stats look like.

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