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Jul 11, 2020 · In 1999, when Donald Trump was first toying with the idea of giving his countrymen the honor of voting for him for president, the notion was so absurd that Christopher Buckley took to The...
- Summary
- Analysis
- Jobs and Unemployment
- Economic Growth
- Income and Poverty
- Regulations
- Crime
- Guns
- Border Security
- Corporate Profits
The statistics for the entirety of Donald Trump’s time in office are nearly all compiled. As we did for his predecessor four years ago, we present a final look at the numbers. 1. The economy lost 2.9 million jobs. The unemployment rate increased by 1.6 percentage points to 6.3%. 2. Paychecks grew faster than inflation. Average weekly earnings for a...
In the fall of 2020, we published a preelection update to our quarterly “Trump’s Numbers” series, and on President Joe Biden’s inauguration, we examined several statistical indicators on what he inherited. But as we noted then, the books weren’t yet closed on the Trump presidency. It takes several months for some of the data to be finalized. While ...
As a candidate, Trump proclaimed: “I am going to be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.” As president, Trump saw 100 months of continuous U.S. monthly job gains end in February 2019 as the economy slowed. In 2020, job growth collapsed entirely when COVID-19 went from being a localized problem in Wuhan, China, to a global pandemic. Em...
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. economy began slowing down. Thereal (inflation-adjusted) gross domestic product went up in Trump’s first two years, peaking at an estimated 2.9% in 2018 — the highest since 2005. But the economy grew only 2.3% in 2019and the bottom fell out in 2020. The real GDP declined 3.4% in 2020 from the previous yea...
Household Income— Household income rose briskly under Trump before declining last year due to the pandemic. The Census Bureau’s latest report on “Income and Poverty in the United States,” which was released Sept. 14, showed that median household income reached$67,521 in 2020— a 2.9% decrease from2019 but an increase of $3,838 from 2016 when adjuste...
The growth of federal regulation slowed to a crawl under Trump. The number of restrictive words and phrases (such as “shall,” “prohibited” or “may not”) contained in theCode of Federal Regulationsstayed below 1.08 million for most of 2019— a little below where it was when Trump took office. But as of the day he left office,the count had crept up to...
Murders and aggravated assaults shot up dramatically under Trump, while most other types of crime declined. In his inaugural address, Trump darklyportrayed America as a country mired in poverty, drugs and crime. “This American carnage stops right here and stops right now,” he promised. But quite the contrary, the FBI’s annualCrime in the United Sta...
Sales and production of guns slowed during Trump’s presidency — until COVID-19 concerns and protestsagainst policing triggered huge spikes last year. Handgun Production — In 2020, the annual production of pistols and revolvers in the U.S. set a new record of 6.3 million, according to interim figures from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and...
Illegal border crossings, as measured by apprehensions at the Southwest border, were 14.7% higher in Trump’s final year in office compared with the last full year before he was sworn in. That’s how we’ve been calculating this statistic going back to our “Numbers” articles for Obama. Although Trump boastedduring a speech in Alamo, Texas, just a week...
After-taxcorporate profitsset new records in the first two years of Trump’s presidency — but declined slightly in 2019 and fell further still in 2020, when the pandemic forced businesses to close, some permanently. Still, after-tax corporate profits were higher when Trump left office than when he arrived. Corporate profits hita record $1.98 trillio...
Jan 15, 2021 · The actual requirement is only for the new president to be sworn in and take an oath per Article II, Section 1. Yet ever since George Washington chose to give an inaugural address in April 1789, in New York City, his successors have given such a speech.
Mar 17, 2016 · Notable & Quotable: Christopher Buckley, writing in the Journal in 1999, imagined Donald Trump as president delivering his inaugural address. Christopher Buckley imagined the event...
Jan 20, 2017 · Reuters. Donald Trump’s first speech as president is actually his second — if you count a 1999 parody inaugural address presciently penned by political satirist Christopher Buckley. “My...
Jan 20, 2017 · David Greene and Rachel Martin talk to Christopher Buckley, a former presidential speechwriter, about what it means to see Donald Trump become the de-facto head of the conservative movement.
David Greene and Rachel Martin talk to Christopher Buckley, a former presidential speechwriter, about what it means to see Donald Trump become the de-facto head of the conservative movement.
