Did We MAGA? An Economic Analysis
Jobs (Non-Farm)
Job creation is one of the most common figures touted by an administration to show improvements to the nation. Until this year, no president in recent history had lost jobs overall.
Obama dealt with a massive job loss rate coming in from the 2007 Recession; from 2007-2010, the economy lost 8.7 million jobs. The sequester in the second term also took almost a million jobs away. From 2009 on to 2016, 17 million jobs were created. In total, Obama oversaw an 11% increase in jobs. From 2012-21016, that growth was 7%.
Donald Trump dealt with a massive job loss in 2020 with COVID-19; from 2020 on, the market lost 25 million jobs. Prior to COVID, jobs were at 158732000, meaning Trump had created 5 million jobs, or a 3.75% growth rate.
Job creation goes to Obama (O=1 - T=0)
Trump's personal rating here: 1/10
Unemployment Rate
Unemployment rate indicates how people people are looking for a job and not finding one. Usually every administration changes how it is calculated, however, thankfully the differences between the Obama and Trump administration's methods are all in counting those who are not looking for work, and do not impact the unemployment rate itself.
Trump came in on that slope, and continued it until the COVID pandemic hit. Prior to the pandemic, the rate was 3.5, giving Trump a drop in unemployment rate of 40%, half of Obama's total and less than his second term rate.
Unemployment reduction goes to Obama (O=2 - T=0)
Trump's personal rating here: 4/10 (Covid Related, otherwise 8/10)
Average wages
Average wages are a good indicator of where the most people are in terms of income. It is not perfect however; multiple jobs are part time, massive outliers skew the averages, and world events leading to unemployment or saturation can alter these figures dramatically. As an indicator for the employed and their growth, however, this is an accurate portrayal.
Obama had two terms in which to increase the average wage; splitting off the first from the second shows an increase of only 7.5% from 2012-2016.
Trump's figures actually received a boost from COVID-19, as many low paying jobs were lost. Prior to the pandemic, average wages were $24.01. This means Trump had an average wage growth of 11.67%.
Average Wage increase goes to Trump (O=2 - T=1)
Trump's personal rating here: 6/10 (it's still just $2.51 increase over four years)
Stock Market
While it has absolutely not causal relationship with the economy, the stock market is nonetheless a good indicator of the confidence investors have in the economies where these markets are based. To do this comparison, we will be using the DOW.
Stock Market value goes to Trump (O=2 - T=2)
Trump's personal rating here: 9/10
GDP Growth Rate
The economy's expansion can be seen in how much our gross domestic product grows, or if it shrinks. Growth indicates the job, money and stock markets are doing well, so the most growth indicates the better economic impact.
COVID also impacted the GDP negatively, leaving Trump with a negative growth overall. Prior to COVID, his rates were high of 3.9 and low of 1.3, averaging to 1.81. Neither his heights nor his average beat Obama's figures
GDP Growth rate goes to Obama (O=3 - T =2)
Trump's personal rating here: 2/10 (Prior to COVID, 4/10)
Inflation Rate
Inflation impacts how much our money is worth, and the FED goal has always been to keep
it around 2%. The USA is deathly afraid of deflation, meaning their policies are geared to
keeping much closer to 2 than to 0.
Obama's administration introduced several economic measures to keep inflation up post crisis, thus in his first term it rose from 0.2 to 1.7. His second term was much more stable, increasing only by 35.3%
Trump saw a significant drop in the rate thanks to COVID; before then, we were heading to higher inflation at a rate of 2.5, trending upwards to 2.5
This is actually one of the toughest ones to judge, because Obama purposefully hyperinflated, and the inflation rate was tapering off prior to COVID dragging it far further. If we judge it on the FED standard of keeping it between 1.8 and 2.2, however, Obama takes the lead with his second term results. Stability and accuracy wins.
Inflation rate goes to Obama (O=4 - T =2)
Trump's personal rating here: 4/10 (5/10 pre-covid)
Trade Imbalance
This has been a hot topic for many, noting that the USA has a negative Trade Balance and questioning how much that negatively impacts our economy. It is generally understood that you want either an equal or positive trade balance for a healthy economy, though the USA's robust system is seen as an exception to many balance rules of economics, including debt.
Trump saw no such swings, instead having a steadily increasing trade imbalance, which prior to COVID hit -46104, for a growth of 5.68%.
This one is also hard to judge, because while Obama saw many periods of reducing the imbalance, in the end his numbers clock in slightly less than Trump's. Neither brought it down in the end, and COVID contributed to a much greater imbalance, though indicators showed the trade wars were also having quite a negative impact. Since we'll never see those figures, based on what did happen alone prior to COVID we'll give this one to Trump.
Trade Imbalance change goes to Trump (O = 4 - T = 3)
Trump's personal rating here: 1/10 (4/10 pre covid, though better than Obama's 3/10)
Federal Debt to GDP
US debt is massive, but it is not always an issue, since the USA can borrow for practically nothing and leverage its debts easily. However, recent events this century have put that position in jeopardy, and thus we will look at how much our debt eclipses our GDP to see if we can exist well as any other nation not in our position could.
COVID response massively increased out debt, but prior to COVID our debt had still risen, to 106.9, for a 1.33% increase. Trump however did not see it rise, even with COVID, to Obama's levels.
Federal Debt to GDP goes to Trump (O = 4 - T = 4)
Trump's personal rating here: 4/10
Budget Deficit
The deficit and the debt are often mixed up; while the latter is how much we owe in total, the former is how far over budget we are each year. The only way to reduce the debt is by not having a deficit at all, a feat only produced recently by President Clinton.
Trump increased the deficit immediately due to tax cuts and heavy spending, jumping the rate up to 4.6 before COVID, and it skyrocketed from there. His till 2019 increase was 44%, with an average rate of 4.0 during his first three years.
Budget Deficit Reduction goes to Obama (O = 5 - T = 4)
Trump's personal rating here: 1/10 (3/10 Pre COVID)
US Export Prices
Our ability to export goods is one of the primary ways the nation makes an income off of other nations, and the price to do so is determined both by their import fees and our policies, as well as international regulations. Since we control one and only influence another, and have no say over the third, it is hard to rate this. But we can compare purely on outcome for businesses, which in turn provide health to our economy.
Prior to COVID, export prices had actually risen to 125.8, and fell as nations shut down their economies and relaxed their export and import rules to encourage logistics. That gives Trump a non-covid related increase in export prices of 3.28%.
US Export Price Reduction goes to Obama (O = 6 - T = 4)
Trump's personal rating here: 4/10 (2/10 Pre COVID)
US Import Prices
Similar to the above, our ability to import cheaply into the nation allows the flow of goods and services globally, and means factories have access to materials for less cost. We will compare the same way as above, though this value we have far more control over as we control import fees and regulations.
Trump's trade wars spiked import prices from allies and non-allies alike, leading to a 125.2 pre-covid, an increase of 2.62%. It undid all the gains made by the Obama administration in terms of reduced import/export costs between allies.
US Import Price Reduction goes to Obama (O = 7 - T = 4)
Trump's personal rating here: 4/10 (2/10 or 3/10 Pre COVID)
A Note on Taxes
It is practically impossible to get consensus on the economic impact of taxes. As such, I will not be doing a straight up comparison on impact. I will state the facts: Trump reduced the Corporate tax rate, by 40%, to 21%, the lowest since the 1940s. Obama never reduced it at all. The maximum personal income tax was 35% in Obama's first term, and 39.6% in his second, an average of 37.3%. Trump reduced that to 37% in his tax cuts, though this reduction is set to expire in 2021. In general, taxes went up under Obama, and down under Trump. How that impacted take home income and the health of the economy I will leave for hearty debate.
Minimum Wage
Neither president changed the minimum wage of $7.25.
Other Figures
There are far more figures I can show on the economy, but I hope this has covered the big ones.
But if not, a quick rundown of some you might be interested in:
Personal Debt to GDP: Increased by 1.71% pre-covid, no figures out yet for 2020.
Exports: reduced by 5.54%
Imports: increased by 7.82%
Government Spending: increased 7.54% pre-covid, 108.7% in 2020.
Internal Weapon sales: increase of 13.22% (compared to Obama's 43.45%)
Terrorism index (as it interrupts trade): increase of 6.81%
Overall Summary
Donald Trump's presidency was defended primarily by his supporters as his positive impact on the economy. From the data we have, that's a mixed bag. While he was good for cutting taxes and increasing the stock market, as well as providing a slight growth in average wages, his job creation numbers lagged and then sagged in 2020, his trade wars caused losses in imports and exports, overall GDP growth was lacking, and the budget deficit blew up. He may have kept up a bit with Obama's record, but mostly those were in areas where Obama himself didn't do very well. Neither president has done much to increase the economic health of the working class, preferring to focus on their economic strengths of trade and low taxes, respectively.
In Summary, the data rates Trump as subpar economically, and the state of our Economy compared to 2016 is poor. We have less jobs, more unemployment, low to negative GDP growth, inflation AND deflation indicators, a much larger trade imbalance, less exports, more imports, more cost for both, a higher debt and a much higher deficit, and more government spending for less services. We also have a booming stock market, only slightly higher average wages, a big corporate tax rate drop and a diminishing personal tax rate drop for the highest earners. That's good news for pure investors and international corporations, but poor news for the rest of the nation.
Economically, we are not great again. We are worse off.
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