Bottom Half of Households Nearly 50% Richer Under Trump
The Trump economy is giving the greatest benefits to those who have been at the bottom, according to new data from the Council of Economic Advisers.
Data released by the CEA shows that over 11 quarters from the end of 2016 through the first half of 2019, the net wealth of the top 1 percent of American households rose 13 percent. However, that rise is dwarfed by the 47 percent increase seen by the bottom 50 percent of America’s households over that same period.
??? Under @realDonaldTrump real net wealth held by the bottom half of households has grown by nearly 50% — that’s over 3 times the rate of increase for the top 1% of households! pic.twitter.com/6UJInbh7zA
— CEA (@WhiteHouseCEA) January 10, 2020
That’s not all.
In tandem with a jobs report that showed America’s unemployment rate remained at a record low in December, the White House released a report revealing that since January 2017, when Trump took office, Americans at the lower end of the wage scale have seen transformative wage hikes.
The report said that on average, workers’ pay has been rising faster than that of managers, and wage gains for Americans without a bachelor’s degree are rising faster than those for Americans with a bachelor’s degree or higher.
And, in keeping with Trump’s campaign promise to lift up black Americans, “average wage growth for African Americans now outpaces wage growth for white Americans,” according to the White House report.
America’s labor force is growing because Americans who were not formerly even looking for jobs are now employed, the report said.
“In the fourth quarter of 2019, 74.2 percent of workers entering employment came from out of the labor force rather than from unemployment, which is the highest share since the series began in 1990. This influx of workers has brought the labor force participation rate for prime-age adults (ages 25-54) up to 82.9 percent in December—1.6 percentage points above the rate in November 2016,” the report said.
Speaking Friday on Fox News, commentator Stuart Varney called December’s 3.5 percent unemployment rate “historically, extremely low.”
Varney also called the stock market’s gain of 11,000 points since Trump’s election “an explosive rally” and argued the market’s growth is part of an expansion of the wealth of the American economy by $12.8 trillion.
Pointing out that the economy added an average of 176,000 jobs per month in 2019, the White House tried to put this number into context.
“To put that growth into perspective, the U.S. economy needs to create around 70,000 jobs a month to keep pace with working-age population growth. Any employment growth above this level is typically from workers coming off the sidelines. With employment gains surpassing 100,000 in 34 of the 37 months since the 2016 election, and the economy adding jobs in each month, this is precisely what is happening under President Trump,” the report said.
The Labor Department’s December jobs numbers, meanwhile, showed that women now are the majority in the American workforce.
“Why is today a milestone? It’s a milestone because it’s really heralding the future and not just telling us where we are today,” Betsey Stevenson, a professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, told The Washington Post.
Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, said the jobs report has political ramifications.
“This stuff will translate in the election, I’m surprised the Democrats are so pessimistic painting a picture of a deep recession,” Kudlow told The Post. “The key point here is 3.5 percent unemployment continues, and that is a very low number historically and shows you still have a healthy economy and healthy job market.”
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