No, Trump’s economy is not 'greatest ever'

There’s a widespread perception that Republicans are better than Democrats at managing the economy, and Trump wants to base his reelection campaign on what he thinks was a “great” economy before the pandemic. Neither of these assumptions is correct.

It is true the economy was doing well prior to the pandemic; however, it was only continuing a trend that began during the Obama administration. Economic growth in the first three years of Trump’s presidency was almost exactly the same as during Obama’s second term.

Remember that candidate Trump promised that economic growth during his administration could “go higher than 4 percent. I think you can go to 5 percent or 6 percent.” But he’s never hit 4 percent in any quarter (Obama did four times), and he has hit 3 percent in four quarters, the same number Obama did during his final three years in office.

Trump, his enablers, and his supporters continue to claim that Trump, prior to the pandemic, had created the greatest ever U.S. economy. Not true. There have been periods of time when the economy was much stronger. Compare Trump’s performance on the economy with that of the last twelve presidents during the first 22 months of each presidency. The growth of the economy under both Trump and Obama averaged 2.3 percent. According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis in the U.S. Commerce Department, the top three presidents for growth were Democrats: Kennedy 5.5 percent; Johnson 5.1 percent; and Clinton 4.0 percent. The top Republican was Reagan at 3.5 percent. In fact, only the Bushes had growth rates lower than Trump’s.

Trump also wants to take credit for creating jobs by signing the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. Total nonfarm employment had grown every month since he took office. However, the string of monthly job gains started in October 2010; the economy has now added jobs every month for more than nine years. The average monthly increase in jobs under Trump so far is 191,000, compared with an average monthly gain of 217,000 during Obama’s second term, so job creation has actually slowed slightly under Trump. At this rate, a second-term Trump would not equal the job gains made during Obama’s final term.

In particular, Trump claims to have created 600,000 new manufacturing jobs. He said, “You would need – according to a past administration representative at the highest level of that past administration – you would need a magic wand to bring back manufacturing jobs. Well, we brought them back and we brought them back to over 600,000 manufacturing jobs” before the pandemic. He was off by a lot. The Labor Department shows that, from the time he took office to the end of 2019, the U.S. added 443,000 manufacturing jobs; his boast is off by more than 25 percent. While he touts his record creating “millions” of new jobs, Trump is far behind the pace needed to fulfill his campaign boast that “I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”

The low unemployment rate Trump brags about also requires scrutiny. In January, the official rate of unemployment was 3.6 percent. A person who is looking for a full-time job that pays a living wage but cannot find one is unemployed. By that definition, the true unemployment rate was 23.4 percent, more than seven times higher, according to the Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity founded by a former U.S. comptroller of the currency. That’s because the official unemployment rate is artificially depressed by excluding people who might be earning only a few dollars a week. It also excludes anyone who has stopped looking for work, or is discouraged by a lack of jobs, or by the demands of child or family care. If workers over 16 years of age who are not earning a living wage are counted as unemployed, the unemployment rate rises even further. The pandemic has exacerbated the problem; only 46 percent of White Americans and 41 percent of Black Americans over the age of 16 now have a full-time job that pays more than $20,000 per year.

Biden’s economic plan would roll back the 2017 corporate tax cut, replacing it with spending programs likely to yield much more bang for the buck. In particular, much of the expenditure would be on infrastructure and education aimed at strengthening the economy in the long run, as well as boosting it over the next few years. When nonpartisan Moody’s Analytics evaluated Biden’s plan using their economic model, it concluded that by the end of 2024, economic growth would be higher under Biden than it would be under a continuation of Trump’s policies, resulting in an additional 7 million jobs. The investment firm Goldman Sachs’ estimates are similar, forecasting economic growth of 3.7 percent.

Trump’s prediction of a Biden economic bust lacks credibility, not just because Trump lies about everything, but because Republicans always predict disaster from progressive policies – and have never been right.

Mark Berg is a community activist in Adams County and a proud Liberal. His email address is MABerg175@Comcast.net.