Trump will leave office with a historically bad economic record
...Trump will leave office in January with a historically bad record on the economy.
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Alone among the 13 presidents since World War Two, Trump will exit the White House with fewer Americans employed than when he started. He will have overseen punier growth in economic output than any of the previous 12 presidents.
His throwback "America First" agenda has failed to restore the old economic engine that powered an earlier era's prosperity. On Trump's watch, industrial production has fallen. The Federal Reserve says the manufacturing sector fell into recession in 2019 even before the coronavirus pandemic hit.
Last week was the 38th in a row in which at least 700,000 Americans filed first-time claims for unemployment benefits.
Holiday-season lines at food banks dramatize the scale of human suffering. More abstract measures, such as the US trade deficit and ratio of government debt to the size of the economy, have also worsened during Trump's term.
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Trump's economic record ranks near or at the bottom compared with other presidents," concludes Moody's chief economist Mark Zandi, who compared the economic results of all presidents from the last 70 years. "The economy under his watch has performed very poorly."...