Assessing how the economy did and how the middleclass fared under Obama compared to Trump

What I am hoping for here is an objective discussion of the OP, so before I begin let me make the following declarative statement. Presidents do not control the US economy nor do they create jobs! Economies are very complex with thousands of variables at play that no one person controls. The only thing presidents can do is implement policies that hopefully have positive impacts on businesses and job creation by business! They can also lower taxes, which allows people to keep more money in their pockets. Both Democrats and Republicans can do that. Here are a few articles looking at this under Trump vs Obama:

The conclusion from this article was: So did the Trump tax cuts work? Yes — GDP growth increased, which led to significantly increased personal incomes and job creation. And the individual tax cuts primarily benefitted middle-income earners rather than the wealthy. But whether anyone will care about that in November is another question.”

https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/476959-contrary-to-what-the-media-reports-middle-class-americans-are-surging

This was Stephen Moore’s response to a CBS article on the economy: Even more misleading is that CBS based its figures on a Congressional Budget Office estimate of what will happen with incomes over the next two years. The Congressional Budget Office also projected three years ago that gross domestic product might be some $600 billion below what it actually is today. This is not exactly an agency with a stellar record at predicting things. Even the CBS figures contradict the headline because the story claims **incomes are up at least $4,000 per household for the middle class, adjusted for inflation under Trump. That compares with a $1,000 per household gain in incomes under Obama over eight years.

(It's a Middle-Class Boom | RealClearPolitics)!

This was also from Stephen Moore: “But not a word of this is true, according to new Census Bureau data on the incomes of America’s middle class. This study by former Census Bureau researchers and now statisticians at Sentier Research has found gigantic income gains for the middle class under Trump. The median or average-income family has seen a gain of $5,003 since Trump came into office. Median family income is now (August 2019) $65,976, up from about $61,000 when he entered office (January 2017).**”

From the article: Workers’ wages are growing faster than their bosses’, narrowing the income gap, as a result of President Trump’s policies, according to Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia.

At the end of the Obama administration, what we saw is wage growth for the high wage earners [and] slow wage growth for the low wage earners," Scalia told FOX Business’ Maria Bartiromo in an exclusive interview at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. "We’ve flipped that in this economy,”

Decreasing unemployment and Trump’s reduction of regulations are factors that have contributed to this low-income wage growth, according to Scalia.”

Regarding my analysis from my personal situation as a middleclass family from NJ. The new tax law did benefit my family in the amount of over $5,000/year.

PS - For those who wish to dialogue here please provide specific policies from either president that you believe deserves the most credit. Also feel free to provide your own anecdotal situation.

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The power of the tariff cannot be overstated.

It got Mexico to help with immigration and is an alternative to international conflict.

They got China’s attention.

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Foriegn policy is not my forte but from what I recall over the years many have complained about China but I don’t believe anyone ever did anything about it.

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This kind of punches a hole in the lib argument that the Trump tax cuts only benefited the wealthy but…that’s what the troughs were feeding and the sheople were eating…and we all heard that regurgibleeting here in Hannity Land.

Besides Tax Cuts For The Wealthy - What major domestic thing has trump accomplished?

The Trump administration is considering bypassing Congress to grant a $100 billion tax cut mainly to the wealthy

Recession warning

Even in a state like NJ that had the SALT reduction, your property taxes had to have been about $15,000 or higher along with state taxes in the $10,000 range.

I thought this would prompt more discussion/debate?

I mean I would join the discussion, but I don’t own any property so I have no idea what you are talking about.

The old man owes me $12000. Can you pass that on to him?

Because I can open your The Hill opinion piece by Stephen Moore and immediately see how he is diverting attention and switching the subject around and presenting cherry picked bits of data to make his false case. And I don’t care to get into it because it’s exhausting and it’s boring.

Enjoy your reading and being led around.

BTW Stephen Moore’s op-ed is a whinefest about a CBS article. When reading op-eds where the subject is another media piece, it’s best to click through to the original media piece and read that, instead of what someone else is trying to tell you about it.

I would say that the bailout of the auto industry was one of the more significant things that Obama did.
And as far as the Trump tax cuts, I will wager that most folks don’t realize that these will begin to phase out in a couple of years with the majority ending in 2024. And at that time the folks that benefited from the cuts will find themselves paying increased taxes. So it will be interesting to see if Congress will do anything about this.

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SALT stands for State and Local Taxes. The new tax laws capped the SALT deduction at I believe $10,000, which is part of the itemized deductions. Although the standard deduction was raised to $24,000. So after the new tax laws one’s property taxes had to be in the $15,000 range to potentially be affected.

I did read the original article, and much of it is based on projections as Moore noted. Regarding the CBS article’s discussion on income inequality, they could have made the same argument regarding the situation under Obama as well, which is what I am looking to compare and discuss. Last point I’ll make is that I’m not trying to defend every aspect of the new tax law but simply trying to objectively compare the economy and the middleclass under Trump and Obama specifically in regards to policies implemented.

It also included income tax.

Being middle class in NYC I pay State and City taxes.

Including property tax in Maine… I easily topped $15K.

My taxes went up.

So I had to incorporate 3 LLCs in order to make my tax burden go down.

Really stupid if you ask me.

That’s a fair point. Personally not a big fan of bailing out companies that most agree had been mismanaged for years, but I can understand the rationale for doing so.

Did you factor in Obama’s disgusting comment on manufacturing jobs are a thing of the past when you did this post?

Remember the stupid magic wand comment?

If you read the initial statement in the OP along with any of my other posts specifically on the economy I would consider myself one of the more objective people on the forum. Here’s another perspective:

On that adjusted basis — which we judge to be the most accurate for making historical comparisons — the increase during Trump’s first two years would be $1,638, or 2.7%. That’s still nowhere near the rise indicated by the Sentier data, but it does exceed the rise during Obama’s eight years — when adjusted median income rose $1,100 (in 2018 dollars), or 1.8%.

So if I go with this data you still have a greater increase in two years with Trump in office than the eight years of Obama, along with a tax cut that put over $5,000 in the pockets of middle class families.

Personally I was not a fan on everything in the new tax law. I would have kept the higher marginal rates on the higher income individuals and had a higher SALT deduction.