Just How Good Is Trump’s Economy, Anyway?
F DONALD TRUMP has his way in November’s presidential election, he’ll coast to victory on the strength of the economy.
The U.S. job market, President Trump tweeted in September, currently has its “all time best unemployment numbers, especially for Blacks, Hispanics, Asians & Women.” Those numbers, which only grew stronger in the final months of the year, followed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), the 2017 law that Trump has, with typical hyperbole, described as “the largest package of tax cuts and reforms in American history.”
Even as the president faced a trial in the U.S. Senate, the stock market was up, unemployment was down, and average families were earning more than ever before. The week the Senate held its final vote in the impeachment trial, he delivered a State of the Union address that opened with an extended brag about the strength of the nation’s economy, which he called “the best it has ever been.” That is why Trump’s 2020 campaign message can be condensed into a single tweet: “How do you impeach”—or in the electoral case, beat—“a President who has helped create perhaps the greatest economy in the history of our Country?”
For his Democratic rivals, the answer is to downplay the economy’s gains or to deny its strength altogether. At one Democratic primary debate last year, candidates were asked what they would say to a voter who dislikes Trump but likes his economy. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) rejected the premise, saying that for ordinary people, the economy “ain’t great.” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D–Mass.) dismissed economic gains as a “rise in corporate profits” that are “not being felt by millions of families across the country.” Former Vice President Joe Biden insisted, “The middle class is getting killed. The middle class is getting crushed.”
In the run-up to the 2020 election, then, even the economy has become as, “Partisans have a strong desire to interpret the economy in a way that benefits their ‘team.’”
