Tag Archives: Data analysis

Trumponomics – just plain made up

Trump claims recent economic growth is unprecedented. The claim is demonstrably false and just plain made up. According to Politifact:

Trump said, “Watch those GDP numbers. We started off at a very low number, and right now we hit a 3.2 (percent). Nobody thought that was possible.”

This is inaccurate two ways. First, the most recent saw GDP growth of 2.0 percent, not 3.2 percent. And second, exceeding 3 percent GDP growth in a quarter is not an unusual achievement — Obama accomplished it eight times. The real achievement would be a full year at 3 percent, which hasn’t happened under Trump yet.

We rate the statement False.

Much more interesting is that the U.S. has not managed a full year of 3% growth since 2005. Politifact has a much more interesting article here that explains why most economists think a sustained 3% will not be achievable in the foreseeable future.  In summary:

  • Growth in the working-age population is much lower than it was (political response: prevent willing workers from entering the country, oppose measures to provide childcare to working age adults…)
  • Productivity growth has also slowed significantly (political solution: underfund infrastructure, education, research and development; although to be fair, some of the recent changes to corporate tax policy might help if companies choose to invest the savings in plants, equipment, research and development rather than just letting executives pocket them)