The chart above reflects the results of a recent Quinnipiac University Poll -- done between December 1st and 7th of a national sample of 978 registered voters, with a 3.1 point margin of error.
It shows that a small majority of voters think Donald Trump has done a good job with the economy. The poll is in line with many others I have seen. People generally have accepted Trump's claims about being responsible for a great economy.
The truth is far different. Although he inherited a good economy from President Obama, and watched it continue to improve early in his presidency, he has not acted in the best interests of American workers and consumers. He taxed consumers by putting tariffs on China (and U.S. allies). The he trashed the economy by ignoring and then mishandling badly the Coronavirus pandemic. The truth is he has been a terrible president for the economy.
Here is part of how CNN reports Trump's record on the economy:
President Donald Trump still can't accept the numbers measuring his loss to Joe Biden: more than 7 million popular votes and 74 electoral votes.
But another set of numbers adds insult to his psychological injury. They show that -- notwithstanding lies as promiscuous as the ones he tells about election fraud -- Trump will leave office in January with a historically bad record on the economy.
That sounds discordant since many Americans believe the economic fable that Trump has repeated relentlessly throughout his term. But placing his bottom-line results alongside those of his predecessors paints a deeply unflattering portrait.
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.
"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."
To be sure, the deadliest public health pandemic in a century has devastated economic activity during this last year of the President's term. But responding to unexpected catastrophe -- from hurricanes to terrorist attacks to civil unrest to financial crises -- represents a big part of the job. And, as Zandi notes, Trump's bungled coronavirus response has exacerbated and extended damage to jobs and output. . . .
Growth accelerated in early 2018 following Trump's sole major legislative achievement, the tax cuts he and Congressional Republicans enacted. But that didn't last long with the economy already near full employment, and the budget deficit swelled. A temporary surge in investment resulted mainly from higher energy prices. . . .
The counter-productive tariff wars Trump initiated quickly offset any short-term benefit from the tax-cuts and the administration's deregulation push. That's why Trump, to avoid further damaging the economy in his re-election year, called a truce with China in January without obtaining the structural reforms he had demanded from Beijing. Trump earlier threw away leverage by abandoning the Trans-Pacific Partnership with allies that the Obama administration had negotiated. . . .
The President can cite a higher-than-average 3.32% annual gain in real per capita disposable income. But that average conceals the extent of those gains that flowed to the affluent, who benefited disproportionately from his tax cuts. . . .
Through the third quarter of 2020, Zandi says, the least wealthy 50% of Americans own just 1.9% of the nation's net worth, while the top 1% own 30.5%. The surging pandemic promises make that disparity worse before Trump leaves office.
When the Labor Department issues the final monthly jobs report of his presidency in early January, Zandi expects it to show a renewed decline in employment. In the first quarter of 2021, as Trump yields power to Biden, the Wall Street firm JPMorgan predicts that economic output will shrink.
