Much has been made about Trump’s economic results by his supporters — the so-called “greatest economy ever.” These claims are based upon Trump’s words not upon factual analysis. If one looks at the real numbers, a different story will be told.

Using data from the Federal Reserve, I have calculated the results of two commonly-used economic statistics, real GDP and employment, for the first three years of the Trump administration (2017 – 2019) and the last three years of the Obama administration (2014 – 2016). This choice of time periods eliminates the negative effects of the Covid pandemic in 2020.

The annual growth in GDP for the Trump economy was 1.88%, for the Obama economy it was 2.66%. The annual growth rate in employment for the Trump economy was 1.49%, for the Obama economy was 1.92%. Using the most recent data from the Federal Reserve (including Covid effects), Trump’s economy has a produced a negative 1.21% annual growth rate in GDP and a negative .91% annual growth rate in employment. That is, the economy has contracted over the past 3½ years and all of the gains for Trump’s first three years have vanished.

The truth is that Trump simply inherited a growing economy from Obama and continued that growth at a slightly lower rate. If one looks at a graph of these data, they will see an essentially straight line where it is virtually impossible to see where one administration ends and the other begins.

We must look at the facts, not hyperbole.

David Linn

Ocean Shores