On a political perspective, majority rides rely on economic performance. Incumbents are often reelected despite the presence of the stronger economies. However, they, on the other hand, suffer defeat irrespective of the weak ones. In any case, Tanner acknowledged that Trump has indeed unleashed ‘an economic miracle’; then this should justify for the reelection of his government as well as those that have accorded him support. Likewise, the good news on the economy becomes a mirage or whether Trump is just relying on the economic policy of the previous regime of Obama; then his claims of success have no basis. Hence, this paper evaluates on whether Trump will fix the economy of the country.
First, during the month of July this year, the country’s economy reached its 93rd noninterrupted month of increase in job opportunities thus making it one of the longest stretches within the history of US. Also, for the very first time ever since, jobs are more than those who are seeking for them. The rate of unemployment is now at 3.9 percent; the year 2000 was the period where the same scenario was witnessed, a time associated with the Clinton boom.
According to the figures released by Gallup and seen by Smialek, close to a third of the Americans have a belief that this marks the best time of getting a good paying jobs. The figures still remain one of the top readings the agency has witnessed since it started researching on the question from the year 2002. The good news about the economy, however, does not cover the worker paychecks. On averagely, the growth of wage for every hour has always stood at 2.7 percent from the previous year, irrespective of the length and power of the expansion economic wise. Worse side of it, an increase in inflation, aided by higher prices on oil, has contributed towards clawing back of nearly all the gains in wages as noted by Irwin. All these trends, on the other hand, never started after the election of Trump. In-fact, this is indeed how the rate of unemployment has been from the year 2012. In any case, Winfree was sure that if one can notice a sharp breakage between the Obama and Trump economies, then the same person can attest of all what is being alleged here as also supported in figure 1 below.
Figure 1: The rate of unemployment for the year 2012
A look at the growth in jobs also gives the same picture as presented in the above figure 1. Depending on the time where one is inferring to, Irwin concurred that one can still proceed with the argument that from the time of election of Trump, economic growth has been somehow very slow or also faster when compared to his predecessors. However, the growth in the economy just follows the pace of the past regimes before him (Tanner 8).
Figure 2: New job opportunities before twelve months to the mid of June
According to Smialek, during the second term of Obama, 217,000 jobs were being created monthly. However, after Trump took over, the figure has decreased to 189,000 every month. Despite this, it can still be justified that the figures are just close to each other. On the other hand, this should not lead to Trump bragging that he is partly doing something new that Obama was unable to do (Bradley, Huber and Moller 12). The same instance here is true for the growth in GDP. Tanner believed that stronger growth in the economy was not possible to achieve; such that the economy of the US that had been stagnant was the norm. Regardless of this, the country’s economy has been growing at a faster rate from the year 2014.
Something odd as emphasized by Klein gives the suggestion that Trump has gone against odds by ensuring the return of the country’s rate of economic growth to the second term of the Obama administration (Smialek 13). During any rate, Bureau of Economic Analysis provides the chart also affirmed by Smialek, that on its part serves as the stronger case, that the economy of the country is nearly the same of the second of the term of the administration of Obama( Irwin 2).
Figure 3: Real GD; change in percentage from the preceding quarter
Klein noted that it may not be easy in looking at the data above and present an argument that the Trump economy gives a representation of a sharp break from the economy of Obama. However, the argument is cutting in both the two directions (Baumol and Alan 12). Trump is yet to unleash a miracle in the economy but again he is also yet to cause a crisis. Majority of the liberals had a belief that the victory of Trump could have had a devastating impact on the country’s economy, the creation of fears on trade wrangles, political messes and even possibility of nuclear wars. Trump might have kept a less impressive record of growth in the economy, but again looks very impressive type of record beyond the expectations of many who had criticized him earlier before his election. Klein opines that Trump should be credited for not landing the economy into a ditch and for sure this stands out as his major achievement. On top of this, Trump did inherit an economy that was very strong and thus had to work ways of maintaining it at that tempo; where he has succeeded as he seeks to fulfill his slogan of ‘Make America Great Again’.
To a much extent, Winfree identified that there have been cases of modest growth for the past one year, thus serving as the reason why the Republicans subscribe to them (Smeeding 82). Following many years of opposing the entreaties suggested by the administration of Obama in lifting the cut taxes and sequestration for laborers, congressional Republicans have proceeded to be part of Trump in boosting the expenditure by the government by many billions of dollars plus also passing of the 1.5 trillion in the unpaid tax deductions. On the other hand, a bigger deficit demand financially driven Republicans condemned Obama when he sought for it, but on the contrary side of it, were quick at implementing at after Trump took over the office. On the same note, Irwin identified that in the previous years, the Republicans had sounded warning of prolonged debt as the cause of the stoppage of the corporate firms in investing and growth in the economy. Not forgetting, they also believed that the very debts had added many trillions to the nationally based credit card minus causing any harm to the economy (Fischer 484). Indeed Trump took over the economy of Obama and went ahead to include a Keynesian type of spending boosting where the Republicans never gave Obama a chance in doing the same. However, the disappointing side of it is that much of the money is yet to be felt in wages. On the other hand, the good news linked with it is that recent increment in pay has been more focused on enhancing the distribution of the income(Winfree 22). Workers within the bracket of the 40 percent income distribution are witnessing realistic faster growth in wages when compared to the times of the 1990s. Regardless of this, the overall wages are experiencing slow growth than the expectation of the type of an economy that has been there for such a long duration of time.
In conclusion, the question that arises is whether Trump economy is a stronger one. Yes, it seems so though with certain big caveats. Another question to ask is whether Trump deserves to be credited that much. The answer to this may be hard to give but it remains very clear that he has not contributed towards derailing the growth of the economy he found, where in this case, may be regarded as an achievement. Thus the next question then is whether the growth is continuing. A recession, on the other hand, would appear devastating since increment in wages is yet to cause the pain associated with the previous recession.
Works Cited
Bradley, D.; E. Huber; S. Moller; F. "Determinants of Relative Poverty in Advanced Capitalist Democracies". American Sociological Review. 68 (2013): 22–51
Baumol, William J. and Alan S. Blinder. Macroeconomics: Principles and Policy, Tenth edition.
Thomson South-Western.2016.Print
Fischer, Stanley. The Role of Macroeconomic Factors in Growth. Journal of
MonetaryEconomics 32,(2012).pp. 485-512
Irwin, Neil. "How Good Is The Trump Economy, Really?." Nytimes.com. N.p., 2018. Web. 24 Nov. 2018.
Klein, Ezra. "The Truth About The Trump Economy." Vox. N.p., 2018. Web. 24 Nov. 2018.
Smialek, Jeanna. "Trump Says The U.S. Economy Is The ‘Greatest’ Ever. It’S Not." Bloomberg.com. N.p., 2018. Web. 24 Nov. 2018.
Smeeding, T.M. "Public Policy: Economic Inequality and Poverty: The United States in
Comparative Perspective". Social Science Quarterly. 86(2014):pp. 955–83
Tanner, Michael D. "Who's Really To Thank For Booming Economy: Donald Trump Or Barack Obama?." Usatoday.com. N.p., 2018. Web. 24 Nov. 2018.
Winfree, Paul. "Trump’S Economic Agenda Is Unfocused. Here's How To Fix It." N.p., 2018. Web. 24 Nov. 2018.
