Trump Owns the Economy Now, for Better or Worse

On Thursday, the Commerce Department said the economy slowed more sharply at the end of last year than previously reported, revising its estimate of fourth-quarter growth to 2.2 percent from 2.6 percent because of weaker spending by consumers and state and local governments, among other factors.

Growth for the full year — as measured from the fourth quarter of 2017 to the fourth quarter of 2018 — stands at 3.0 percent, down a bit from the initially reported 3.1 percent but still enough to allow Mr. Trump to claim to have achieved the first year of 3 percent growth since 2005. (That claim is somewhat misleading. Year-over-year growth has topped 3 percent several times in recent years, but not in the fourth quarter. An alternative measure of full-year growth for 2018, based on comparing calendar-year averages, was unrevised at 2.9 percent.)

While Mr. Trump continues to predict robust growth, he is already trying to pin blame for any slowdown on the Fed, rather than any of his own policies.

“We’re doing a good job,” he said in an interview last week on Fox Business Network. “And I think we have tremendous momentum right now. And you’re right, the world is slowing, but we’re not slowing.”

He added that, “if we didn’t have somebody that would raise interest rates and do quantitative tightening,” we would have been at over 4 percent growth.

Fifty-six percent of Americans approve of Mr. Trump’s handling of the economy, Gallup reports, the highest mark of his term and the best for a president since Barack Obama registered the same rating in March 2009. Surveys of consumer confidence remain strong, including a confidence index conducted for The New York Times by the online research firm SurveyMonkey, which has gained strength since Mr. Trump took office.

Unemployment has dipped to 3.8 percent. Inflation remains subdued, and wage growth is accelerating.

White House economists say the tax cuts Mr. Trump signed in 2017, for businesses and individuals, deserve much of the credit for the economy’s performance — and that they will deliver another strong year of investment and hiring in 2019.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/28/us/politics/us-economy-trump.html?partner=rss&emc=rss