Republicans are rewriting Trump's record on the economy, ignoring the devastation inflicted by a pandemic that's left millions of Americans unemployed
- Trump says he can put an economy wrecked by the pandemic back on the right track.
- Republicans are echoing him, and they appear to be rewriting his economic record to cast it in a more favorable light and ignoring the devastation that's taken place under his watch.
- Their version of events also sharply diverges from the increasing hardship many Americans face with federal stimulus efforts now ending.
Putting it front and center in his campaign pitch, President Donald Trump maintains he can put an economy that's been devastated by the pandemic back on the right track.
Republicans are echoing his argument. They appear to be rewriting Trump's economic record, seeking to cast it in a favorable light and ignoring the damage that's taken place under his watch.
Their version of events also sharply diverges from the increasing hardship many Americans face with federal stimulus efforts now ending. Nearly 28 million Americans are on unemployment benefits and many also face the threat of evictions in the coming months.
Indeed, the president and other speakers at the Republican National Convention spoke of the state of the economy in glowing terms:
- Donald Trump: "We just broke a record on jobs, an all-time record. There's never been three months where we've put more people to work, more than 9 million people."
- Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio: "Taxes cut, regulations reduced, lowest unemployment in 50 years... he's rebuilding the economy as we speak."
- Donald Trump Jr.: He said the president "did what the failed Obama-Biden administration never could do, and built the greatest economy our country has ever seen," crediting Trump with the lowest unemployment rates on record for "Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, women, and pretty much every other demographic group."
The economy was undergoing a record expansion when Trump took office in January 2017, and it grew during much of Obama's presidency after the Great Recession. That growth lasted until earlier this year when the pandemic abruptly ended that decade-long stretch of growth, causing another recession.
In March and April, the economy shed nearly 22 million jobs and just under half of them were recovered over the spring as lockdowns eased and some people returned to work. However, the US is still down roughly 13 million jobs compared to before the coronavirus outbreak, which renders Trump's claim as misleading.
The unemployment rate stood at 4.7% at the onset of his presidency, and it fell to a half-century low of 3.5% in February. It surged to 14.7% in April before ticking downward to its current level of 10.2%.
The jobless rate did hit record lows for Black Americans and Hispanic Americans, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. But the same can't be said for women, who experienced lower unemployment in the 1950s. Trump Jr.'s claim of unbridled prosperity for every segment of the public is exaggerated.
Those trends on job creation and unemployment are illustrated in charts posted on Twitter by Aaron Sojourner, a former economist to President Barack Obama.
Given the ongoing nature of the pandemic, economists say it's extremely difficult to forecast whether the rebound in the labor market will endure.
It also reflects another reality of the economy: traditional metrics used to gauge the economy such as job growth and unemployment rates are often outside the president's direct control. But Republicans seem eager to make the opposite argument as they portray Democratic rival Joe Biden as a threat to the nation's economic recovery.