Trump wants to draw comparisons between today and four years ago

 Trump wants to draw comparisons between today and four years ago.

Trump wants to draw comparisons between today and four years ago. According to reports, Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump's closing remarks to voters deciding between him and Democrat Kamala Harris have centered on a well-worn tactic in American politics: asking voters if their current situation is better than it was four years ago.


Maybe he should look up his dates. According to a National Center for Health Statistics analysis of the year, the COVID-19 pandemic caused a 1.8-year drop in US life expectancy in 2020, the final year of Trump's presidency, and resulted in over 350,000 deaths, making the virus the third-leading cause of death.

Trump may choose to go back a year to 2019 in order to be more fair to himself, but even then, the record is not entirely clear. Many economists believe that the success of the mainly bipartisan effort to prevent a health disaster from turning into an economic one is evidenced by the striking similarities between the economy today and then.

THE TAPE'S STORY: GDP

According to data reported on Wednesday, the economy is still growing above trend and near the 3% growth rate that Trump used as a success metric during his first term.

The economy is now 11.5% bigger overall after accounting for inflation than it was at the end of 2019, when Trump's production hit . 

The fact that overall incomes have kept up with inflation is another issue that has not been well received by US consumers. When it comes to sentiments toward the economy, economic surveys have repeatedly shown that this isn't really important. For example, if food costs 10% more, consumers don't really care if their earnings increased by enough to pay it and then some.

Averages also don't account for the experiences of all households.

Even still, inflation-adjusted income per person was almost 10% greater as of the third quarter of this year than it was in the third quarter of 2019, despite the fact that the bumps in the road were substantial, with federal expenditures temporarily increasing earnings before rising prices reduced purchasing power.