A billionaire bond king doesn’t trust unemployment data – he thinks it’s rigged. During an interview on Making Money with Charles Payne, DoubleLine Capital CEO Jeffrey Gundlach said the numbers are “hard to believe.”

“Amazingly, 88% of the states, and I think they have D.C. in there so there’s 51 of them, 88% of them are reporting rising unemployment over the last six months. And I’m having a very hard time squaring this circle,” Gundlach told FOX Business host Charles Payne on Thursday.

“If 88% of the states are reporting rising unemployment, how can it be that national unemployment remains stable at a very, very low level?” he further posited.

Data from the December jobs report showed the U.S. unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 3.7% after rising for three straight months.

However, a recent report from business and executive firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas found the pace of job cuts by U.S. employers accelerated in 2023, with the number of layoffs surging 98% compared with the previous year.