Where is that boom?

Trump is at it again, claiming he has a record-setting economy. Rhetoric is one thing, but what does the data tell us?

His first two years produced an average of 2.72 million jobs per year. In five months of 2019, 820 thousand jobs have been produced. If that average holds up, it equates to 1.97 million jobs in 2019, and would give Trump a three-year average of 2.47 million jobs per year. During President Obama’s last four years, the average job growth was 2.59 million jobs per year.

Most economists say that the ideal real GDP growth rate should be 2-3 percent for a healthy economy. During President Obama’s last four years the growth rate averaged 2.3 percent, while Trump’s first two years show an average of 2.72 percent—both averages of healthy economies. With the second quarter of 2019 result of 3.1 percent growth, Trump proclaimed that we have the greatest economy in history. During the second and third quarters of 2015 the growth rates were 3.81 percent and 3.37 percent, but those rates still pale when compared to 1996-1999 when the yearly growth rates were over 4 percent. Were those periods also the greatest economies in history?

During Obama’s last four years the unemployment rate went from 6.7 percent to 4.7 percent, a decrease

of 2 percentage points. The first two years of the Trump administration it lowered to 3.9 percent, a decrease of 0.8 percentage points. From Jan. 1, 2017, to April 1, 2019, real hourly wages increased from $26.31 to $27.74, a 5.44 percent increase. The last two years of the Obama administration real hourly wages grew from $24.88 to $26.31, a 5.75 percent increase. Wages grew less in the first 27 months under Trump than in the last 24 months under President Obama.

Where is the record-setting economy? All data show that the economy is continuing as it did under President Obama—slow, steady growth. The only thing that seems to be booming is the growth in debt.

KENNETH R. WEBER Greenbrier