2018: Moving at the Speed of Trump: President Trump's Second Year in Statistics

By J. Preta Simon

A look at the second year of Donald Trump's presidency, continuing the momentum created in 2017. The year shows, month by month, America's new successful path to near full employment in record breaking statistics. As companies rushed to reshore profits and reopen shop in the U.S., President Trump juggled the economy, North Korea, trade issues, failing infrastructure, political resistance, and an immigration issue lining up at the southern border.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Discovery Docx
• Release date: Feb 18, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463641965

Book preview

2018

Moving at the Speed of Trump

President Trump's Second Year in Statistics

J. Preta Simon

2018 Moving at the Speed of Trump: President Trump's Second Year in Statistics

Copyright © 2019 J. Preta Simon. All Rights Reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, digital, mechanical or photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except for inclusion in a review or as permitted under Sections 107 and 108 of the United States Copyright Act, without either prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to Discovery Docx.

This publication is from news and government documents available to the public.

Published 2019 in the United States by Discovery Docx

ISBN 9780463641965 (e)

Contents

Introduction

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Author's Note

Introduction

When President Trump took office in 2017, even some of his most devoted voters wondered exactly what this president they had put in office could do for them. Over 2017, a whirlwind of economic activity ensued as business restrictions were lifted, and U.S. confidence soared, locking Trump voter opinion of making the right choice. The momentum continued in 2018.

Unfettered by Obama-era regulations that strangled manufacturing and mining, companies moved back to the U.S., opened new plants, hired new and laid-off workers, trained new workers, reshored billions of foreign-shored profits, and made plans for the future on American soil. For students in high school or fresh out of college, this new atmosphere of hope in the job markets was never before seen—they had yet to witness a flourishing economy. After eight years of the previous administration's policies, a truly hopeful future of employment was an unrecognizably strange environment.

Apple reshored 22,000 jobs and planned to bring back $30 billion over the next five years. Boeing brought back over 7,700 jobs, and Ford and General Motors 17,000 jobs, collectively. Plans for new plants and expansions were on the drafting tables.

But as 2017 ended, some wondered if the top had been reached. Could employment go higher?

The answer was a solid yes.

As Trump-era policies took hold across the country and Hiring signs popped up, President Trump scanned the humanitarian fronts. Over the next months, he would negotiate, by friendly or sanction-laced demands, prisoner returns, detainee releases, prisoner pardons, and look into prison reform. The return of prisoners and detainees came, it was pointed out, without freeing terrorists in return or paying millions of dollars.

America's infrastructure was in need of maintenance and rebuilding, and construction and engineering jobs rose to meet the demand. This was manifested in the February release of the Legislative Outline for Rebuilding Infrastructure in America, addressing issues from California's high-speed trains (at the time of this writing) to rural areas across the fly-over states to bridges and maritime needs on both coasts.

Here is a look at the year 2018.

January 2018

Coming out of December 2017, the civilian unemployment rate, seasonally adjusted, was at 4.1 percent overall, with Black or African American at 6.8, Latino or Hispanic at 4.9, Asian 2.5, and White at 3.7. This includes Women ages 20+ at 3.7 and Men ages 20+ at 3.8.

This month biopharma giant Amgen CEO Robert Bradway announced plans to add 1,600 new jobs to U.S. manufacturing. This was up from a 15 percent cut in workforce and the closing of two manufacturing plants in 2014 in cost-saving measures.

Also this month, Apple announced plans to invest in excess of $30 billion in the U.S. over the next five years. Included in this was $1 to $5 billion in U.S. manufacturing companies and the domestic manufacturing sector. This was expected to create 20,000 new jobs. This comes after Apple took advantage of the new big business tax repatriation law signed by President Trump in December 2017, paying $38 billion on profits, lower than the previous law's rate allowed. Apple repatriated $285 billion from foreign accounts.

Nikola Motor Company chose Buckeye, Arizona, to build a new hydrogen-electric semi-truck manufacturing headquarters, including a one million square-foot building west of Phoenix.

Citing President Trump's new tax law signed in late December 2017, companies across the U.S. handed out one-time bonuses, holiday bonuses, and pay raises. Among these was retail megastore Walmart. Due to recapturing costs with its new tax percentage of 21 percent rather than percent, Walmart voluntarily raised minimum wage for U.S. employees to $11 per hour. Walmart has over one million hourly employees.

Other companies announcing bonuses, pay raises, voluntary minimum wage increases, stock grants, and other employee benefits linked to the tax law passing included AT&T, Boeing, Comcast, Wells Fargo, Fifth Third Bancorp, Alaska Air Group, HomeStreet, Inc. (Seattle), Starbucks Coffee Company, The Home Depot, Lowe's, Dollar Tree, U-Haul, FedEx, McDonald's, Mill Steel Company, Fiat Chrysler, WebHobby Shop, LLC., and many more.

In Huntsville, Alabama, the