Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., is just making things up now.

“When they declare victory at four percent unemployment, it is not good enough. Because four percent unemployment means an eight or nine percent unemployment in some cities for black women,” the 2020 Democratic hopeful said on Nov. 14 at the National Action Network Conference. “It means a 16 percent unemployment rate for black men. It means young veterans coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan, a 20 percent unemployment rate. So, our work really isn’t done.”

Not a single data point mentioned by the senator is accurate. Worse still, to believe her office’s defense of her remarks requires not just the suspension of disbelief, but also a contorted and dishonest reading of unemployment statistics.

First, the current unemployment rate for African American men is 6.2 percent, not 16, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Similarly, the rate of unemployment for African American women is 4.9 percent, not eight or nine. The rate for 18 to 24-year-old Iraq and Afghanistan veterans (from 2001 up to today) is 12.6 percent — not Gillibrand's 20 percent — but for their peers aged 25 to 34 ( who are much more numerous, according to BLS), it is an astoundingly low 1.9 percent.

A Gillibrand spokesman told the Washington Post that she simply forgot to use the word “young” when she cited black unemployment. But even crunching the numbers for the 18- to 24-year-old category requires that one twist oneself into a pretzel, combining two separate civilian labor force totals as well as the total of unemployment in each category. You can get to around 16 percent for men (16.4 to be exact) and nine (8.4 percent) for women, but only using non-seasonally adjusted numbers from October. But even that requires ignoring that youth employment is traditionally worse in October than it is in the summer. In other words, you have to massage the data awfully hard for Gillibrand’s claim to approach being accurate.

Also, let’s not lose sight of the fact that the current unemployment rate for prime-age black men (25-54) is 5.3 percent.

I understand that the 2020 hopefuls need to find ways to downplay the economy, but come on.