Many Trump supporters, and conservatives in general, proudly claim that Trump has single handedly transformed and revamped the American economy. President Trump himself preaches to his supporters claiming he “accomplished an economic turnaround of historic proportions.” The question lies in how accurate that statement truly is.
There is no question that the American economy is flourishing now, but there is a question as to when that started. President Obama had his work cut out for him with the Recession of 2008, but according to the Joint Economic Committee, Obama had successfully led the American economy through a strong recovery by the end of his two terms. It is not to say that the economy hasn’t strengthened at all throughout the Trump presidency, but it would be ignorant to claim that the economy Trump inherited was suffering. In their study, the Joint Economic Committee focuses on a few points to prove this. The first of which being that even though the unemployment rate is at an all-time low of 3.6% currently, President Obama more than halved the United States unemployment rate from a high of 10% during the recession to a rate of just 4.7%. In addition, the average monthly job growth is lower under President Trump than it was under President Obama; “during the last 33 months of the Obama administration, non- farm job growth averaged 224,000 per month. During the first 33 months of the Trump administration, the average was 34,000 jobs per month less.” Not only was job growth more expansive under Obama, but so was income. During the first two years of President Trump’s term the median household income grew at a rate of only one third of that during the last two years of Obama’s presidency. These are just a few of the points raised in the study conducted by the Joint Economic Committee comparing the economy and the economic development under Obama and Trump.
From these points, it is clear that the thriving American economy we are living in now, is not just a product of President Trump, but rather that of years of work, even proceeding his election.
Boak, J. and Rugaber, C. 2018. “AP FACT CHECK: Trump falsely claims historic turnaround” Associated Press. Retrieved from https://apnews.com/a7e135215ebc4993a99a85f7eb6963f3
Maloney, C. United States. Congress. Joint Economic Committee. The Joint Economic Report: Did Trump Create or Inherit the Strong Economy?, Congress of the United States, on the … Economic Report of the President. Washington: U.S. G.P.O. : For sale by the Supt. of Docs., U.S. G.P.O.