You’ve heard it before: Sure, the economy is doing well, but it’s not really Trump’s economy, it’s Obama’s. He just inherited it.
Until stuff starts going downhill, of course — then the fundamentals were all President Donald Trump’s.
I have neither the time nor the energy to explain the multitude of ways this is utterly ridiculous.
However, for economist Stephen Moore, there’s one thing in particular that sticks out as evidence of how much better things are under the 45th president than the 44th: How the middle class is doing.
I know, you may not have noticed this. If you listen to the Democratic presidential debates, the middle class is dying; they’re being squeezed out by a growing mass of economically stagnant lower-income Americans who used to be middle-class until the monocle set took all of their money because they needed a fifth yacht or something.
As Moore pointed out in a Wall Street Journal piece published Sunday, Trump’s critics “insist all the benefits have gone to the rich and large corporations.”
He quoted Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren: “America’s middle class is under attack,” she’s told audiences.
But is it really?
Well, we wouldn’t be writing this article if the received wisdom were accurate, so let’s listen to Moore — former president of the Club for Growth and a one-time Wall Street Journal editorial board member, as well as an adviser for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign — explaining the numbers on Fox Business this week:
Moore talked about how they’d “found, based on the Census Bureau data … they are reporting now that from the day that Donald Trump entered office through the end of July of this past year — these are the most recent numbers — middle-class incomes are up $4,100.”
“That is a chart-topper,” he continued. “In the previous 16 years, under the Bush and Obama administrations, incomes only rose by $1,000.”
Moore said they’re such “blockbuster” statistics that “I had to triple-check these numbers to make sure they were right because they are so off-the-charts.”
The economist spelled it out in more detail in The Wall Street Journal piece.
“The latest data from the Census Bureau monthly surveys tell a different story. Real median household income — the amount earned by those in the very middle — hit $65,084 (in 2019 dollars) for the 12 months ending in July,” he wrote.
“That’s the highest level ever and a gain of $4,144, or 6.8%, since Mr. Trump took office. By comparison, during 7½ years under President Obama — starting from the end of the recession in June 2009 through January 2017 — the median household income rose by only about $1,000.”
Moore said the data “squares with other economic trends. It explains why consumer spending has surged this year and major retailers like Lowe’s and Target report massive sales. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow had it right when he said last month that, due to fatter paychecks, families are spending and saving more at the same time.”
And as for Trump inheriting the Obama economy — well, not so much, Moore said.
“Mr. Obama inherited a financial mess, but the median income continued its decline during almost all of his first term and rose only slowly in his second term — the weakest recovery from a recession since the 1930s,” he said.
Moore did have a caveat at the end of his piece: “A protracted economic slowdown or recession could reverse Mr. Trump’s advances on jobs and incomes,” he wrote. “The trade war is imposing a heavy toll.”
“But for now the median family enjoys its fattest paychecks ever. The middle class not only isn’t shrinking, it’s getting richer.”
This likely isn’t going to get a lot of play in the midst of the Ukraine whistleblower scandal.
It should. If the left wants to know why Donald Trump still has a very good chance in the 2020 election, despite everything the establishment media and Democrats have said over the past few weeks, it’s because of what he’s done for the middle class.
You know, the same middle class he’s been attacking all these years, according to the Democrats.
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