-- UPDATED 1/9/2020 -- Removed paragraph with link to potentially retracted job hire study.
While the first plate thrown by Hillary Clinton on the night of November 9, 2016 was still in transit towards John Podesta’s head, the relief that Obama was out of office and a Clinton presidency avoided fell over American business owners, igniting an economic renaissance. Almost three years into the Trump administration and he's exceeded any realistic expectation.
This economic boom we’ve been experiencing and riding into 2020 has not only revitalized our economy, it’s given the President infinite political capital to withstand the Obama administration's coup attempt and the coordinated slanderous and seditious smear onslaught by the media.
As the foreign-controlled media cried daily that the “Mueller walls were closing in”, Trump’s rallies continued to grow and overflow beyond the capacity of his venues, making it easy for the President to confidently shake off the flood of fake news like an afternoon summer’s drizzle.
The media understood the strength of the economy amplifies the intensity of Trump's support and therefore attempted to drive a wedge between economic perception and reality. They failed, because it's hard to tell people that nobody's working when everyone's working. The fake financial media propagandists preached to us daily how all signs point to recession, despite perpetual good news upon good news. Negative dips were declines spiraling towards a great depression while upward trends were anomalies explained by some rare alignment of circumstances.
In a few short years under Trump, a generation of citizens have been educated on how an economy is supposed to function, and there's no way to put that genie back in the bottle. The Obama sycophants in the media are very distressed that Trump has exposed their economic incompetence and are desperately relying on a new generation of kids who weren’t around, or too young to remember Obama’s depression. Unfortunately for them, time continues to expose their preposterous lies.
Trump's economy continues to expose Obama's unemployment lie
The following chart shows the correlation between the unemployment rate and labor force participation rate. Those who try to make the case that the Trump unemployment decline is a continuation of Obama’s “decline” expect you to be stupid enough to look at this chart, see the decimation of the workforce, and still expect you to believe employment was increasing at the same time. Under Obama, millions left the workforce. That’s not a “recovery”; it’s a depression.
Under Obama's administration, after someone had been unemployed for a long time and eventually gave up looking for work (because of the economic depression), yet wanted to work, they were not counted in the labor force. As insane as it sounds, this person who gave up because they couldn't find a job ended up IMPROVING the Obama administration's unemployment numbers!
The Obama administration lie about their unemployment numbers exposes the degree of how bad their economy was because if things were good, they wouldn't need to lie.
After the Obama administration passed the Affordable Care Act scam, countless small businesses were forced to cut head count and hours, forcing millions of full time workers to quit (-1 job) and get two full time jobs (+2 “new” jobs) for a NET employment of +1 jobs on the Obama administration’s numbers.
Does that sound like a strong, vibrant "recovering" economy? Of course not. Under Trump, full time and part time numbers surpass Obama’s numbers, even with the person leaving two part time jobs (-2) to finally transition back to a full time job (+1) for a Trump statistic of -1 jobs. To put another way, Trump’s numbers are handicapped from the Obama depression, yet still trounces his employment numbers.
To highlight the contrast between Obama’s depression and Trump’s sustained boom, consider this statistic: currently, every month, ~70% of new jobs are from workers not in the workforce! Why are these people re-entering the workforce?
Under Obama, finding a solid job was no easy feat; under Trump, it’s a worker’s market where finding a job is no big deal.
Wage growth
A consequence of this economic renaissance is a tight labor market, which is great for workers but a challenge for small business owners. Don’t get me wrong, we’d rather be in business with recruiting challenges versus being out of business, but for the first time in many years, the employee is in the driver’s seat. This has forced stuck-in-the-mud wages to pop, but the real story is the lower wage earners have seen the greatest increase.
The incomes of the bottom 25 percent of U.S. wage-earners are rising at the fastest rate of all groups of employees, according to data published by the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
The wages of the lower-most quartile grew by 4.5 percent in November from a year earlier, according to the Fed, while wages for the top 25 percent increased by 2.9 percent over the same period. The last time the wages of the bottom 25 percent of wage-earners grew at 4.5 percent was in August 2008, and before that, in October 2002.
Dynamic wage growth among the lowest-earning cohort is indicative of an increasingly tightening labor market.
This reality drives the leftists absolutely bonkers. How can they explain how the “working man”, for whom Biden and Bernie roll up their sleeves before a stump speech, be benefiting the most from the Trump economy? They use the most ridiculous and debunkable argument: many states have increased minimum wage (Marxist policy), therefore causing wages to increase.
First, and the most obvious, is minimum wage kills jobs and puts small businesses out of business. Beyond common sense, this is a quantifiable reality. When minimum wage increases are mandated, more people are forced into the unemployment line, increasing the size of the available labor pool. As the labor pool increases, and with less labor demand from businesses closing their doors or unable to afford new hires, the wages of those now unemployed is $0 per hour.
For a basic example of this concept, imagine 100 people making $10 per hour, with an average wage of $10. For an illustrative apples-to-apples comparison, if the wage is mandated to $15, and 75 people lose their jobs, that average wage for those 100 people drops to $3.75, as 75 of those people are now making $0. The typical Bernie-bot libtard will argue “yes, but the average wage for those 25 remaining people is $15, and they got a raise!”. Yes, these people really are this stupid.
Under Trump, those 100 people are still employed, and because of the overabundance of job openings in a competitive market, other businesses need workers and are willing to increase their wages to lure talent away from the competition. Therefore, those 100 making $10 are now making $12; they all keep their jobs, and they make more money. Free market capitalism beats Breadlines Bernie's insanity every time.
Another counterpoint to their stupid point is to look at wage growth over the years. The last federal minimum wage hikes were in 2007, 2008, and 2009. In the chart above, during those years, does it look like wage growth occurred? No, it went into a sharp decline. As for state minimum wage hikes, when they took effect and businesses began to drop like flies, more people left in droves to states without minimum wage hikes, where unskilled job opportunities are more abundant. The reality is when minimum wage is increased, jobs are lost and hours are cut. Don't believe me? Ask Bernie's campaign.
Immigration policy has led to an increase in wages. As more illegals are busted and sent back to their Bernie-touted utopias, more job opportunities are opening up for Americans.
Import prices remains low
Magically, President Trump has managed to keep import prices low. Another propaganda piece constantly circulated is Trump's tariffs on China have been hurting consumers. This is not just Democrats pushing this false narrative -- it's Republicans who are devoutly committed to our country's submission to China. To their constant bewilderment, import prices have actually dropped since the first round of tariffs were levied upon China.
One of the major face-plants by idiot pundits is when they made fun of President Trump for saying China is paying for the tariffs. They snicker at how dumb he is, and how the tariff burden is being absorbed by consumers. To their dismay, it's a lie, and the Chinese are eating the cost of the tariffs.
Charles Payne does a good job explaining how this happens.
The hardest hit over low import prices are actually never-Trump Republicans. They cling to a misrepresentation of "free market" without the experience or education to understand this topic. They attempt to apply free-market concepts to a trade relationship where one side plays by the rules of economics, and the other is a communist country that subsidizes all production. It doesn't work.
Energy production and exports under Trump have necessarily skyrocketed
In 2019, the United States became a NET exporter of crude and petroleum products for the first time in history, increasing our GDP (imports are subtracted). Energy independence is critical for national security and cheaper prices, hence why the Obama administration fought against it.
If you’ve noticed in 2019, gas prices (in most states that aren’t controlled by Marxists) have been quite durable in the face of global events. For example, when Iran attacked Saudi Arabia in September, the price at the pump barely moved. Energy independence allows us to not be affected by global events involving countries of whom we'd otherwise be dependent.
Under President Trump, United States oil production shot through the roof to where we’re producing more than ever in our history. The United States overtook Saudi Arabia in 2014 in oil production, but we haven’t even begun to tap other resources, like ANWR. With our increase in production, we flood our own markets with greater supply which reduces prices and allows us to compete with other oil producing countries.
Coal jobs are still increasing slow and steady after being destroyed by Obama and his EPA. It’s been hilarious to hear Obama sycophants express sympathy for the coal industry, but only for the purpose of using it against Trump. As you can see in the chart above, they fail.
$1 trillion magically finds its way back to the United States from tax law
Trump’s tax legislation brought back $1 trillion back to the United States. The good news, of course, must be wrapped in a slant of disingenuous assertion of failure because Trump estimated a repatriation of $4 trillion. The last time I checked, we’re not even 3 years into his first term, and the tax cuts went into effect last year.
Trump disappears 6mm people from welfare
One of Trump’s greatest magic tricks was to disappear 6mm dependents from the welfare rolls and make them reappear in the workforce. Under Obama, the welfare president, food stamp recipients were at an all time high.
A new report reveals that more than 5.9 million people have dropped off food stamps with new work requirements and the burgeoning economy of President Donald Trump – just six years after food stamp levels hit an all-time high under former President Barack Obama in 2013.
With the unemployment rate hitting a 50-year low at 3.5 percent this fall and reaching all-time record low rates for blacks, Hispanics and women, the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reveal that 5,975,739 Americans have discontinued using food stamps under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) between February 2017 and September 2019.
Getting America back to work
More and more families are now back to work and no longer dependent on government assistance under the Trump administration.
"Household participation in the food stamp program has gone down, as well, with 2,493,912 households discontinuing their participation in SNAP," Breitbart News divulged from the USDA report. "There are currently 36,322,055 individuals and 18,443,991 households enrolled in the food stamp program. Still, USDA officials said those numbers are 'preliminary' due to the 2018 government shutdown, which affected food stamp administration at the beginning of 2019."
Those numbers are a drastic decline from when Trump first took office, and an even bigger drop since Obama was in office, when reliance on the federal government for food was at an all-time high.
Can you imagine this degree of welfare reform happening under Obama?
The new rule could not come at a better time. The Trump economy is booming, and employers are absolutely desperate for workers at all skill levels. Employers report more than seven million open jobs, meaning there are more jobs sitting open than there are people seeking to fill them. Nearly three-quarters of these annual job openings require a high school education or less. What’s more, 87 percent of those jobs require no prior experience and eighty percent expect less than a month of on-the-job training, including millions that require no job training whatsoever.
The bold actions taken by the Trump administration will soon move millions of able-bodied adults from welfare to work, helping to fill those open jobs and boost the economy. Research shows that able-bodied adults who leave welfare after work requirements are implemented find work in more than 1,000 different industries, touching virtually every corner of the American economy. Able-bodied adults cycling out of welfare leverage those initial jobs in other jobs with even higher wages, quickly moving up the economic ladder. Their incomes soar, doubling and even tripling in just a few short years.
Trump’s magic wand brings back those jobs that were never coming back
The fake news media swear up and down that Trump's economy is not bringing back manufacturing jobs. This chart easily exposes that lie:
This clip of Hussein Obama is one of my favorites in terms of putting his incompetence on display. If you have a large display monitor and want a good laugh, play this clip while looking at the chart above, especially the part about bringing those jobs back. In Obama's defense, even if he wanted to bring back manufacturing jobs, he honestly didn't possess the talent nor education to do so.
Here you can clearly see business has been strong over the past few years, thanks to that magic wand Obama said was required to pull off such feats. Capital goods are used by businesses to produce their goods and services. These assets can be anything used to run a businesses, like vehicles, computers, tools, and even software. Orders have been strong and steady during the Trump administration.
The Trump economy will continue to fundamentally restore our manufacturing base throughout 2020 as our economy continues to get stronger and trade relationships re-establish supply chains as we decouple from China. As strong as manufacturing has been, the manufacturing industry is very capital-intensive and involves factors that take time to line up and procure, like zoning approval, construction of plants, machines and equipment, staffing, approval of financing, establishing supply chains for raw materials, and a lot of intangibles that take time; rebuilding our manufacturing base is not an overnight process.
Trade in 2020
Trump is leading the world to believe we're close to doing a phase one deal with China on the 15th, but I still suspect he's playing a rope-a-dope. China simply can't adhere to our enforcement terms. This phase one deal is essentially Trump telling China to buy a bunch of agriculture and open up their markets, and in turn, he won't drench them with more tariffs. The first few years of Trump's dealings with China has been to tame them and to let them call his bluff a few times. He shut off the NAFTA back doors, let China take him all the way to the table for a deal and walked when they reneged, hit them with more tariffs which they've been absorbing to cling to market share, and forcing them to burn precious USD they need for critical goods like food.
Trump is the first president ever to take China into deep waters and they quickly realized they're outmatched. He's reigned them in so much that for this phase one deal, China actually feels ripped off:
If you know anything about China, you know they're in a new world. To pull this off, Trump had to go against the globalists and the most powerful people on the planet. To get China begging to come to the table, it required a person of superhuman talent. It is possible Trump will go forward with this deal, but if so, we can be rest assured that China has zero doubt that Trump will bring down the hammer if they violate enforcement terms. Trump will roll back the deal, drench them with tariffs, go on a tweet-storm, and continue to cruise to re-election with the full confidence that he has our support.
Trump still has many tools that he hasn't even touched to cripple China, like kicking them off the SWIFT system, interfering with their capital flows, or worse, forcing their companies to obey Sarbanes-Oxley. Imagine their horror of having to follow the same laws as American companies. Trump has China in a box.
Meanwhile, here in North America, USMCA is on deck, which will yield twice the volume and five times the exports as the China deal. The House unbelievably passed USMCA after sitting on it since 2018, and it's ready for the Senate. Leftist idiots are focused on wage guarantees for Mexico and promoting the narrative that Pelosi got a win over Trump (nobody on the planet believes that), but the main purpose of USMCA is to turn North American markets into two-way streets, and most importantly, block China by setting a high threshold for North American content. As Ross Perot said would happen with NAFTA when debating lunatic Al Gore on Larry King back in 1993 (video cued), NAFTA allowed China to build plants in Canada and Mexico for assembly of Chinese-made parts, then sell into the United States market without a care in the world. Trump stopped this.
Bill, a friend on Gab, had a great summary on how China grew their commie roots into our manufacturing base in the 1980s (he was responding to this article on a Massachusetts dryer assembly plant moving to American suppliers):
Beyond China and the USMCA, we have trade deals with Japan and South Korea (KORUS) that will bear fruit in 2020. The President will negotiate a deal with post-BREXIT Britain, working on Vietnam, and select European countries. When you think about the trade barriers implemented by anti-competitive, anti-free trade globalists for the past few decades that are about to be knocked down with these free trade agreements, it's going to be incredible.
Heading into 2020, we are free from the Obama depression
With the President taking down the biggest economic bully on the planet, negotiating new trade deals and re-negotiating unfavorable deals, cutting taxes (with another round in his second term likely), revitalizing our manufacturing base and bringing jobs back, continually reducing the regulatory choke-hold on small business, getting out of Marxist programs dependent on theft of Americans' private property, returning us to energy independence, and reversing many of Hussein Obama's anti-business policies, he has revitalized our country, and is bringing the world to true global free trade.
This article just hit a few items that highlight a great economy, none of which were prevalent during Obama's depression, but I could have kept going. Buckle in folks, because we haven't seen anything yet!
