Taking a look back at Donald Trump’s first term in office

The Street

TheStreet’s Conway Gittens takes a look back at how the economy performed under Donald Trump’s first term.

Transcript

00:00Are you ready for Trump Money 2.0?

00:02While past performance doesn't mean we're going to see

00:04a repeat the second time around,

00:06it is still good to remember what happened

00:08during Trump's first term as president.

00:10So, come on, let's take a look back.

00:17The stock market fared well

00:18under President Trump's first go.

00:19The Dow Jones Industrial Average rallied 51%.

00:23That works out to an annualized gain of 11.8%.

00:27That's pretty impressive for a Republican president.

00:29The last time a GOP White House had numbers

00:31anywhere as good was way back in the 1920s

00:35when Calvin Coolidge was in charge.

00:37But how does that stack up against the Dems?

00:40President Obama walked out of the White House

00:42with a 12.1% annual gain for the Dow.

00:46President Clinton had the tech boom to thank

00:48for annualized gains of 15.9%.

00:52Okay, back to the Trump years now.

00:54The economy lost 2.7 million jobs

00:57during Trump's first term as president,

00:59partly due to COVID.

01:01Under the Biden administration,

01:02the economy added more than 60 million jobs.

01:06Bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US

01:09was a key focus of Trump's first time in office.

01:12He did have some success, but it didn't last for long.

01:15Factory jobs peaked at 12.8 million

01:18and then dropped to 12.12 million

01:20by the time he waved goodbye before boarding Marine One.

01:29Tariffs.

01:30Now that's the word Trump loves to hear.

01:32His first round of tariffs tallied up to $380 billion.

01:37According to economists at the Cato Institute,

01:39that resulted in an average price hike

01:42of $830 per US household per year.

01:47His numbers are better when it comes to inflation.

01:49Since the supply chain pandemic-induced inflation surge

01:53happened mostly after he left,

01:55Trump's average year-over-year inflation rate

01:58comes in at just 2.4%.

02:01That's hotter than Obama,

02:03who had one of the lowest of any term on record,

02:06but lower than Biden's 5.2%.

02:10Oof, we're still feeling pain of that.

02:12Just look at the price of rent and eggs.

02:15Here's a number that might bring you joy.

02:188.4%.

02:20That's how big of a raise Americans got

02:23during Trump's first term, and that's after inflation.

02:27Taxes, however, paint a different picture.

02:29Despite the Trump tax cuts,

02:31the average tax return went down to $2,549

02:37by the time he left office from $2,860 a year

02:42before he got there.

02:44Now, while all presidents have been known

02:47to stretch the truth or twist facts,

02:49here's one final number just for fun.

02:52By the end of his first term,

02:54Donald Trump made 30,573 false or misleading claims,

03:00according to The Washington Post.

03:02That works out to 21 falsehoods or half-truths

03:06for every day he was in office during that first term.

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