In reasserting his candidacy for the nation’s highest office, President Biden maintained that his economic track record has been far superior to that of former president, Donald Trump. The evidence supports Mr. Biden’s contention, with the notable exception of inflation.
When it comes to jobs, there is no contest. Even adjusting for the impact of the pandemic, the nation added an average of 268,000 jobs a month under the current president, compared to 182,000 a month under Mr. Trump. It’s also worth noting that job creation over the past 3 ½ years has been faster than under any president since before Ronald Reagan.
Mr. Biden also likes to tout his record of adding manufacturing jobs, which have reached their highest level since November 2008 and are 186,000 greater than their previous recent peak in February 2020 before the pandemic struck. (Interestingly, growth in factory employment flatlined under Mr. Trump shortly before the pandemic and has also done so recently under Mr. Biden.)
Similarly, economic growth has been materially faster under Mr. Biden than it was under Mr. Trump, again even after adjusting for the impact of the Covid crisis. On that basis, inflation-adjusted gross domestic product has increased at an annual rate of 3.6%, a full percentage point faster than Mr. Trump’s 2.6%. (And not surprisingly, if the impact of Covid is not excluded, the disparity is far wider.)
On the other hand, as every American knows, inflation has been far more problematic in the past several years than it had been for many decades. Some of that was due to supply interruptions related to Covid, which caused prices of many scarce items to rise. But some was also due to the overly expansionary monetary policy pursued by the Federal Reserve and the overly large American Rescue Plan enacted in 2021.
In 2021 and 2022, the higher inflation eroded Americans’ purchasing power. But since then, wages have again grown substantially faster than prices.
Then there’s the deficit and the debt. While Mr. Trump claims to have a good record on these metrics, the evidence proves otherwise. When he arrived, the deficit was running at less than $700 billion. Even before Covid, his tax cut helped that balloon to over $1 trillion three years later. Under Mr. Biden, the deficit has retreated somewhat, although it remains too high at nearly $1.8 trillion.
All told, Mr. Trump added $4.8 trillion in non-Covid related debt while with a similar adjustment, Mr. Biden has added $2.2 trillion. (And now Mr. Trump has proposed extending his tax cuts, which would cost an additional $3.9 trillion.)
