GDP Growth Under Trump Was the Worst Since Hoover

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Hat tip, Joe.My.God.

GDP Growth Under Trump Was Worst Since Depression
August 2, 2021

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Last week's GDP release included revisions back to 1999, so it's time for a new set of presidential growth comparisons! Starting with the basic version: annualized growth in real GDP from 1st quarter in office to last https://bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-08-02/trump-s-gdp-growth-was-the-worst-since-the-great-depression

Link to tweet

{snip}

Economics

GDP Growth Under Trump Was the Worst Since Hoover

The pandemic was partly to blame, and there are some measures that make his record look better. But it was not a stellar performance.

By Justin Fox
August 2, 2021, 6:30 AM EDT

It was the whopping-yet-still-disappointing 6.5% annualized growth number for the second quarter that got most of the attention when the U.S. gross domestic product report came out Thursday. But the data release from the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis also included revisions to GDP and related measures back to 1999, making this an opportune time to take another look at economic growth under Donald Trump and his predecessors.

This is, let’s be clear from the start, not a perfect way of measuring presidential economic performance. There are lots of things that determine economic growth rates other than who is in the White House, and when a president does make a difference the results may be felt long after he’s left Washington. Still, it’s a widely used metric and Trump was downright obsessed with it, so here goes.

Presidents and GDP Growth
Annualized real growth from first quarter in office to last

{snip the chart and all the rest}

[WHITT]

1. YEP

Keep in mind the national economy was crashing into recession BEFORE the pandemic.

[Warpy]

2. That's what happens when you choke off the demand side to fatten your plutocrat golf buddies.

I hope more articles like this one come out to the point the cable financial channels can no longer ignore them.

Yeah, the stock market went up, but everything else took a dive.

[peppertree]

3. $1 trillion budget deficit by 2019 (before Covid) - and that's all we got

Even before Covid (Q1 2017 to Q4 2019), growth under Trump averaged just 2.6% - again, with $1 trillion deficits.

The deficit then swelled to over $3 trillion - or 15% of GDP - in FY 2020. This was one of the costliest Covid rescue spending packages in the world, both nominally and as a % of GDP.

But, of course, he was "the oversight."