Trump’s Numbers, Preelection Update

Summary

During Donald Trump’s time in office:

• The economy lost 3.9 million jobs.
• Economic growth fell short of what Trump promised, then crashed during the pandemic.
• The number of murders went down — but rebounded this year.
• Corporate profits set records — until this year.
• Stock prices and home prices set records. Paychecks grew faster than prices. Poverty decreased.
• The trade deficit Trump promised to reduce grew larger instead.
•  Illegal immigration subsided, then surged, then fell back again.
• The number of people without health insurance went up by 7.1 million, according to a government survey.
• Trump installed nearly 30% of federal appellate judges and 24% of district court judges authorized by federal law.

Analysis

This is the last update before the Nov. 3 election. It’s our 11th quarterly update of the “Trump’s Numbers” scorecard that we posted in January 2018 and have updated every three months, most recently on July 17. 

Here we’ve included statistics that may seem good or bad or just neutral, depending on the reader’s point of view. That’s the way we did it when we posted our first “Obama’s Numbers” article more than seven years ago — and in the quarterly updates and final summary that followed. And we’ve maintained the same practice under Trump. 

Then as now, we make no judgment as to how much credit or blame any president deserves for things that happen during his time in office. Opinions differ on that.

Jobs and Unemployment

Job growth slowed a bit under Trump — then collapsed as the COVID-19 crisis led to mass unemployment. The job numbers have yet to fully recover.

Employment — After nine years and five months of constant monthly job gains — the longest such streak on record — more than 22 million jobs disappeared between mid-February and mid-April.

Just over half of those jobs (52%) were recovered in the next five months as COVID-19 restrictions eased and many businesses were allowed to reopen. The president calls this the “Great American Comeback.”

Nevertheless, as of mid-September, the most recent month on record, total employment was still 3.9 million lower than where it was when Trump took office in January 2017.

Back in 2016 Trump boasted that he would be “the greatest jobs president that God ever created.” But only 661,000 jobs were regained in September, and at that rate Trump is on pace to end his term with a net loss of employment.

Unemployment — The unemployment rate, after falling at times to the lowest rate in half a century, hit a high of 14.7% in April, by far the highest since the Bureau of Labor Statistics began tracking the figure in 1948.

As portions of the economy have reopened, the jobless rate has turned back down. But as of mid-September the rate was 7.9% — still way above the 4.7% rate Trump inherited when he took office.

Job Openings — The COVID-19 shock ended what had been a worker shortage.

As of the last business day of August, the most recent figure on record, the number of unfilled job openings stood at just under 6.5 million — which was 15.8% more than when Trump took office.

But there were still 7.1 million more job-seekers than job openings.

The number of unfilled jobs had been as high as 7.5 million as recently as January 2019, which was the highest in the 20 years the BLS has tracked this figure. And for 23 consecutive months, starting in March 2018, the number of available jobs exceeded the number of unemployed people looking for work.

But that all came to an end soon after the White House declared a COVID-19 emergency, sending millions into unemployment.

Labor Force Participation — The unemployment rate would be even higher except for the fact that over 5 million people age 16 and over have since February, and therefore are not counted as “unemployed.” The government counts a person as unemployed only if they are out of a job despite being available for work and actively seeking a job during the most recent four weeks.