Trump’s Numbers October 2019 Update

Summary

Since President Donald Trump took office:

• The economy added 6 million jobs, and the unemployment rate dropped to the lowest level in nearly 50 years.
• Economic growth fell far short of the annual 4% to 6% Trump promised. The most recent rate is 2.0%.
• The federal debt went up more than $2.4 trillion. The annual deficit hit nearly $1 trillion in fiscal year 2019 – the highest since 2012.
• Median household income rose 2.3%. Average weekly paychecks rose 2.8%. The poverty rate and food stamp rolls declined.
• Stock prices rose: The S&P 500 index was up 29.8%. Single-family home prices rose nearly 23%, hitting a record level in June.
• The trade deficit — which Trump promised to reduce — went up 30%.
• The number of Americans lacking health insurance rose nearly 2 million.
• The number of murders dropped 6.9%. But the number of rapes went up.
• Illegal border crossings nearly doubled, as of the most recent 12 months on record.
• Trump has filled 43 seats on federal appeals courts, compared with 25 filled by Obama at the same point in his first term.

Analysis

This is our seventh quarterly update of the “Trump’s Numbers” scorecard that we posted in January 2018 and have updated every three months, most recently on July 12. We’ll publish additional updates every three months, as fresh statistics become available.

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 seven years ago — and in the quarterly updates and final summary that followed. And we’ve maintained the same practice under Trump. 

This update includes comprehensive looks at crime, income and poverty during the president’s first two years in office. The FBI’s report of crime rates for all of 2018 was released Sept. 30, and the Census Bureau’s figures for median annual household income, poverty levels and health insurance coverage during 2018 were released Sept. 10. Other statistics are released quarterly, monthly and sometimes daily, and we include here the most recent available as of this date.

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, but unemployment dropped to the lowest level in nearly half a century.

Employment — Total nonfarm employment grew by 6,027,000 since the president took office, according to the most recent figures available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

That continued an unbroken chain of monthly gains in total employment that started in October 2010. The economy has now added jobs for 108 consecutive months — just shy of nine years — including the first 32 months of the Trump administration.

The average monthly gain under Trump so far is 188,000 — compared with an average monthly gain of 217,000 during Obama’s second term. Trump is far behind the pace needed to fulfill his campaign boast that he will be “the greatest jobs president that God ever created.”

Unemployment — The unemployment rate, which was well below the historical norm when Trump took office, has continued to fall to the lowest rate in nearly half a century.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics now figures the rate was 4.7% when he was sworn in. The most recent rate, for September, fell to 3.5%. That’s the lowest since December 1969, nearly 50 years ago, when it was also 3.5%.

The jobless rate has been at or below 4% for the most recent 19 months — all under Trump. It hasn’t been that low for that long since a 50-month streak ending in January 1970.

The historical norm is 5.6%, which is the median monthly rate for all the months since the start of 1948.

Job Openings — One reason employment growth has slowed is a shortage of qualified workers.

The number of unfilled job openings hit more than 7.6 million in November and again in January, the highest in the 18 years the BLS has tracked this figure.

As of the last day of August, the most recent figure on record, it was nearly 7.1 million. That’s a gain of 1.4 million unfilled job openings — or 25.4% — since Trump took office.

In March of last year the number of job openings exceeded the number oflooking for work for the first time on record. And that’s been