The White House Press Secretary threw out a tweet two weeks ago claiming that the current economic climate in America is much better now than it was under the Obama administration. The president himself has bragged about past year’s economic improvements during an interview with Laura Ingraham on Fox News and complained that he doesn’t get enough credit for his work.
The truth is that Presidential policies take longer than a year to take effect so, the current improvements in the economy might be the result of the policies laid out by the Obama administration. Let’s see how Trump’s presidency stacks up against Obama’s policies.
Jobs: Trump Claims he has Created One Million Employment Opportunities
Trump started rattling off claims about improving the U.S. economy only six months into taking office when he said that he had created 1 million jobs ever since he became president. Other economists say that the current entrepreneurial environment in the country was responsible for the economic boom, not Trump.
A recent report showed that the number of new jobs in the past year had risen to 1.7 million, but that doesn’t say anything about Trump’s presidency. The employment rate has been increasing consistently since 2010 and this year’s gains were a part of the same trend.
The Unemployment Rate: A Gift from Obama Administration?
The president’s second claim was made about the current unemployment rate which hovers around 4.4 per cent according to a report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Trump said he miraculously fixed the employment rate in one year, which, before his presidency, was utterly ‘nonsense’.
The stats show that unemployment has been at a steady decline since 2011
Trump proudly cited the same unemployment figures that he had once called ‘fake’ before taking office saying that the 2017 witnessed the lowest rate from the past 17 years – but, does Trump’s policies have anything to do with the figure or is the unemployment rate a blessing handed down to him from Obama’s administration? The stats show that unemployment has been at a steady decline since 2011 – long before Donald Trump had even contemplated about becoming the president.
Trump Says He’s Improved the Stock Market… Bigly
Trump must have some sort of a magical talent of ‘single-handedly’ influencing the economy because it hadn’t even been a month since he had taken office when he claimed that the stock market had improved immensely since he became president. During Obama’s presidency, Trump had completely discredited the performance of stock market calling it a big bubble which could pop any day. Nonetheless, the market’s performance has also steadily improved since 2009 – without any help from Trump.
During Obama’s presidency, Trump had completely discredited the performance of stock market
His claim about the stock market could also be a biased perspective since Trump measures the performance using Dow Jones industrial average which had performed exceptionally well during the past year, but it’s performance was simply because of Boeing, whose stocks have gone up by 82 per cent. But, by looking at the stock index of S&P 500, it’s obvious that the U.S. market hasn’t done as well as Trump boasts. In fact, it’s doing much worse than its international equivalents.
Gross Domestic Product: Who Did Better?
Trump thinks that he doesn’t get enough credit for all the great work he has done for the economy and maybe he’s right, because the economists think that he doesn’t really deserve any. GDP is, by far, the best measure of economic performance and Trump has been reminding everyone after each quarter that the country’s GDP has never been better than it is today, but the truth is that Obama’s presidency had seen plenty of quarters with record-breaking GDP growth.
It’s true that economic growth is better under Trump Administration but, the upward trend for every economic aspect cited in the article had started long before Trump took office.
