The Trump economy vs. the Obama economy in 15 charts
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Is a recession coming in 2020 or 2021? Experts continue to debate the conflicting signals , but an equally telling question might be: How does the “Trump economy” compare to Barack Obama’s?
President Trump constantly refers to the economy as “strong,” “terrific” and the “ greatest in the history of our country ,” but a closer look at the data shows a mixed picture in terms of whether the economy is any better than it was in Obama’s final years. The economy is growing at about the same pace as it did in Obama’s last years, and unemployment, while lower under Trump , has continued a trend that began in 2011.
The best case Trump can make for improvement since he took office is higher wages . The typical American worker’s pay is finally growing more than 3 percent a year, a level not seen since before the Great Recession. Similarly, consumer and business confidence surged after Trump’s election and has remained high, and manufacturing output ( and jobs ) also saw a noticeable jump in 2018 after Trump’s tax cut, although manufacturing is now struggling . There’s also been a drop in the number of Americans on food stamps.
But in other areas Trump’s record does not look as rosy. Government debt and the trade deficit are climbing (while most economists don’t worry about the rising trade deficit, Trump made it a central part of his 2016 election campaign), and business investment is faltering as corporate leaders say they are wary of Trump’s trade war . The number of Americans lacking health insurance is also ticking up slightly.
As for two of Trump’s favorite metrics — stocks and jobs — there is a case to be made that those looked better under Obama, although most economists expected job gains to slow now that the economic recovery is a decade old.
Presidents have only so much control over the economy, but how voters perceive economic conditions and their personal finances can play a key role in how they vote. Lately, Republicans and many wealthy voters rate this economy as the best since the 1990s boom , while Democrats and many lower-income voters are less enthusiastic.
Here’s a look at the Trump economy vs. the Obama economy in 15 charts.
1. Job gains. The U.S. economy typically added more than 250,000 jobs each month in 2014 and 227,000 a month in 2015. Trump has not been able to top that yet, but experts say job growth remains surprisingly robust, especially given how many baby boomers are retiring and how many business owners complain that they can’t find any more workers.
2. Unemployment rate. The nation’s unemployment rate is at a half-century low, a source of pride for Trump. But many economists have pointed out that the rate has been falling steadily since 2011, making it difficult to see much difference after Trump took office.
3. Growth. After a painful 2009, the economy has been growing for a decade. In the early years of the recovery, growth was lackluster, but it started to pick up in 2014 and 2015. Trump told America he could do even better as president, but his record so far looks similar to Obama’s final few years in office. His tax cut and deregulatory push boosted growth in 2018, but that appears to be fading as business owners grow concerned about the trade war.
4. Middle-class income. Most Americans saw a noticeable decline in their income during the Great Recession, and it took years for wages to recover. In 2017, a typical middle-class family finally saw their income climb above where it was in 1999 . Data for 2018 will be released in September. Incomes have been rising steadily in recent years as more Americans get jobs.
5. Stock market. The Dow Jones industrial average was up 46 percent at this point in Obama’s presidency vs. 25 percent for Trump. Stocks soared under Obama, and he ended his White House tenure with one of the best gains of any president in modern history. Trump started out with a lot of love from Wall Street as well, especially with his tax cut, but stocks have moved sideways since he began his trade war.
6. Food stamps. About 1 out of 7 Americans received food stamps (the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) in 2013 in the aftermath of the Great Recession, as people struggled to find good-paying jobs again. The numbers came down slightly under Obama, and the decline has accelerated under Trump as more Americans have obtained jobs and the requirements to remain on food stamps have tightened.
7. Manufacturing. Trump campaigned heavily on reviving blue-collar industries and jobs. While service-sector jobs in health care, technology and hospitality rebounded quickly after the Great Recession, manufacturing did not. Trump’s tax cuts helped boost manufacturing in 2018 (blue-collar job growth hit the fastest pace since the early 1980s ), but the president’s tariffs have since taken a toll, sending manufacturing into a “technical recession” in 2019.
8. Home prices. The housing market was at the heart of the 2007-2008 financial crisis, and many Americans lost their homes or watched the value of their homes plummet. Home prices bounced back at the end of Obama’s term and have continued a steady climb under Trump.
9. Gas prices. Americans keep a close eye on gas prices and tend to get nervous when gas climbs above $3 a gallon nationally, but for much of Obama’s second term and Trump’s first term, gas prices have remained under that key threshold.
10. Federal debt. The national debt swelled under Obama as the federal government spent money to try to rebuild the economy after the Great Recession. At the end of Obama’s term, the annual deficit had declined considerably, but it has since jumped up again under Trump because of his tax cut and increased government spending.
11. Wages. For much of Obama’s time in office, wages remained subdued, and his economic team cited lackluster wager gains as the “unfinished business” of his presidency. Under Trump, average hourly pay has climbed and is now growing more than 3 percent a year for the first time in more than a decade. There’s debate about how much credit Trump deserves for this, but his tax cuts and the jump in business optimism probably played a role. Concern is rising, however, that wage growth is stalling in 2019.
12. Consumer confidence. Confidence in the economy has jumped since Trump’s election. This is an area where there has been a clear break from Obama, although experts debate how much of a difference it has made. Normally when confidence rises, businesses and consumers spend more, but that hasn’t been the case, especially for businesses. Still, high confidence is probably playing a role in keeping the United States out of a recession, even as other parts of the world falter .
13. Trade deficit. The United States has purchased more from overseas than it has sold abroad for years, a situation known as a trade deficit. The trade deficit declined during the Great Recession but has since expanded, which is typically a sign that the U.S. economy is growing robustly. Trump campaigned on bringing the trade deficit down, but instead, it has grown during his tenure.
14. Uninsured Americans. One of Obama’s key policy goals was to get more Americans health insurance. The number of people without health insurance fell noticeably during his tenure after the passage of the Affordable Care Act. Progress has since stalled under Trump , who attempted (unsuccessfully) to repeal Obamacare.
15. Business investment. Trump and his advisers said the goal of the GOP tax cuts was to encourage businesses to spend and invest more in new equipment and factories, which would then help boost the economy in years to come. While there was a slight bounce in business spending in early 2018, it has since plunged (even turning negative in the spring of 2019 ), largely because of the trade war.
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This array of information is a real eye opener after listening to Trump propaganda for 3 years. In almost every one of these categories the current economy has just built on what has been in motion and already happening over the last 3 or 4 years of the Obama administration.
You've been bamboozled.
The numbers don't lie, that's apparently the job of virtually every Obama hater these days. It really is incredible to me to hear the anger with which they demonize Obama and claim everything sucked when he was President but when you look at the actual numbers one has to wonder where this bitter hate comes from, because its certainly not his performance which was quite good by virtually every metric.
Nah, you're the one who's trying to bamboozle John. That or you're the bamboozled one.
Obama's stats come from modern times lows/highs after the great recession so adding jobs, raising GDP, lowering unemployment, etc, etc from near all time lows/highs was easy by comparison.
Trumps increases/decreases come a lot tougher from a much better economy and negative qualitative easing. Yours is a ridiculous comparison in that regard.
Not sure if you're trying to fool or you are the fool but you aren't fooling anyone with a modicum of thoughtfulness with this disingenuous tripe. Not a one.
Trump has kept the economic progress that was well under way under Obama going at roughly the same rates as Obama was doing. These charts make that essentially indisputable.
If Obama was still president today would you be giving him kudos for the past three years ( I doubt it) even though he had kept the economy growing (2017-2019)?
The fact is the past three years have impressed you simply because the braggart Trump is in office. If a Democrat was president right now with the exact same stats you would say "whats the big deal?" this is just a continuation of what has been happening for years.
No, you and your fellow Trump supporters are the bamboozled ones.
So you admit the 'president' is a useless fucking moron?
True dat
So he didn't fuck it all up after all. Excellent.
Wait..wait...wait...liberals and especially the idiot Krugman swore the economy would dive into a recession the minute Trump was elected.
So far, Trumps economy is performing far stronger than anything Obama could have dreamed of.
Once again, liberals were wrong.
He did...my apologies
All that endes in 2015 and the chart showes his numbers still increased! So what else you got!
Boy that bar just keeps getring lower and lower!
Wrong John.
Trump has had none of the MAJOR economic stimulus and easing that Obama had. Fed rate decreased to zero for most of his tenure, massive qualitative easing. etc.
Try to bullshit someone who doesn't know better.
Your attempts to obfuscate the facts in this case are almost childlike in nature.
The GOP has passed one single significant piece of legislation: the massive tax break for corporations, with the explicit intent of inciting investment. Two trillion dollars over ten years.
... in an economy that was already humming...
That wasn't major. It was chump change by comparison from an economic standpoint. Not even close the value spent and dollar benefit of Quantitative Easing and years of a 0 % Fed rate but by all means. Keep ignoring those facts. It is very telling of your usual narrative for those who aren't familiar with it.
Not like it is now .....
Have a nice life...
Thx buddy i will try.
Thanks again ..... you're the best!
Fed policy accounted for two trillion every 24 months during most of the Obama years.
It's worth noting that QE contributes heavily to economic disparity.
An inconvenient truth for some here .....
Trump has pretty endlessly cried about the trade deficit (that previous presidents "allowed" to happen.) But under Trump the trade deficit has only grown. I guess you would agree he is failing then?
Wrong.
The charts show the Bush-era collapse. They show the economic dive that began under Bush and was corrected under Obama. (Please note that I am not saying "by Bush" or "by Obama".)
As noted, the charts clearly show Obama had nowhere to go but up. With that, FED rate reductions and serious qualitative easing, he couldn't lose. Trump has had none of those economic advantages but the economy advanced anyway. Any Freshman Econ major can see that.
As to the fall. There is plenty of blame to go around on both sides of the aisle. Blaming Bush only is not being intellectually honest.
Disingenuous as usual i see Bob. Nice to see that some things never change.
This is all you need to know about Obama's economy.
Google it, you can find many, many, more stating the exact same damn thing- that Obama oversaw the slowest recovery from recession since WWII.
The left is frantically trying to claim that this is still Obama's economy; which is complete and utter BS. At the same time cheering on a recession as frantically as they can.
Fundamental error. Obama didn't run the economy, any more than Trump does now.
A President's control of the economy is modest. Thank God! The idea of Donald Trump running America's economy is terrifying.
This. I find it frustrating that more people do not understand this fairly obvious fundamental truth.
Exceedingly modest. Bordering on full impotence.
Pretty much, yeah. The prospect of Sanders or Warren controlling the economy is similarly terrifying. Biden, Beto, Pete....not so much.
At times, Trump has bragged and bragged and bragged about how GDP would skyrocket under him. Obama's last three years of GDP growth were 2.9, 2.5, and 1.6. Trump's first three years are 2.9, 2.4, and 2.1. Very little difference. Get over yourself Trump.
It wouldnt be so bad if Trump were a decent human being who took credit where it is his, and gave credit where it belongs to others. But that is not at all what Trump does. He wants ALL the credit for the economy and actually says that his predecessor administrations efforts were worthless. The charts dont show him right.
Why do you care what he wants?
What president did that? It sure wasn't Obama. I agree it would be nice if people did that, but hardly anyone in politics does that ever.
That is true and it's interesting that Trump want's to go back to QE and is hammering the Fed's to lower the interest rates.
Yes, we are a safe haven. The foreign debt equity market in RE is moving right along. Couple be a double-edged sword.
Interest rates were low and inflation was low under Obama. But, the same can be said of the Trump economy. As a long-time investor in fixed-rate returns, the difference is still pathetic. I don't see where the tariffs were mentioned in my comment, but indeed, they have increased costs/pricing.
I believe that Trump called for QE and low-interest rates as two separate items.
Indeed it is a stimulus plan. Many indicators are showing the U.S. growth is slowing. With a possible recession in the near future.
America rarely looks at anything in a long term perspective. We are driven by election cycles and whatever one can do to be re-elected.
We do suffer from short term memory....
People frequently forget....that is the actual point of tariffs.
I get it: Things were improving under Obama and they continue to improve, so it's not like it's something that started with Trump. I think that's fair.
Or it would be, if it weren't for the predictions we all heard about what would happen to the economy after Trump took office. Expert after expert insisted that the economy would collapse, unemployment would skyrocket, and in short, the economic sky would fall on us all. Furthermore, this wasn't going to take long. Trump would destroy the economy within the year.
Well, none of that happened.
And I don't think you can make a successful argument that Obama set things up so perfectly that anyone in the White House could have achieved the same thing. He's not that cool. At minimum, Trump deserves some credit for keeping a good thing going.
Excellent seed, John... although the Usual Suspects will surely jump through the usual hoops to deny the reality of this massive data dump.
What's amusing, here, is that all decent economists, for the last decade, have been saying "the economy is on exactly the same trajectory as has been since it pulled out of the Great Recession nose-dive".
The fact is that the Fed runs the economy, not the President. The Fed has had a fairly decent series of leaders, although Powell was too trigger-happy about raising interest rates.
For Presidential actions to have much impact, there must be several, and they must be really, really loony. Oh, wait....