Economy

Opinion | Trump’s economy was not as good as you remember – The Washington Post

Published

7 months ago

March 22, 2024

“Three more years! Three more years!”

That’s what Donald Trump’s supporters should be chanting, given how long they seem to believe he was in office. After all, when describing the great economy and other idyllic metrics of the Trump administration, they conveniently lop off his fourth, and final, year, when everything crashed — and when he made that crash worse.

In recent weeks, allies of the former president have puffed up his record and diminished his successor’s. Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) declared that Joe Biden’s presidency represents “the end of the American dream,” whereas under the “Trump economy we had American jobs going to American workers. Under the Biden economy we’ve got American workers getting fired and replaced with foreign labor.” Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) claimed that Black and Hispanic Americans were “better off under Trump,” since he presided over “the lowest unemployment rates for all racial demographics.”

The American public writ large also harbors nostalgia for the Trump years, based on polling on memories of the economy under Trump versus that under Biden.

There are a couple of problems with these characterizations.

First, some of the superlatives used about Trump’s first three years are not quite accurate. For example, Black and Hispanic unemployment were undoubtedly low during the pre-covid Trump years (as Scott recalls), but since Biden took office, these groups’ unemployment rates have either matched the Trump-era numbers or even bested them.

For example, Black unemployment fell beneath 5 percent for the first time in history this last April.

As for the job market overall: There are 6 million more jobs today than in December 2019. And while lots of older native-born Americans have retired — I emphasize retired, not fired, contra Vance’s claims — the number of prime-working-age native-born Americans who have jobs is about the same, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Immigrants, for their part, have helped employment grow even faster than expected, rather than displacing Americans’ jobs.

The second and larger problem is that however good conditions looked at the close of 2019, they were then followed by the disaster that was 2020.

Trump surrogates, and often Trump himself, sometimes ask Americans if they’re better off than they were four years ago. For most people, the answer should be yes — if you count correctly. “Four years ago” situates us in the first year of the pandemic.

In early 2020, many Americans were stuck at home, futilely Lysol-ing their groceries and searching for toilet paper. Unemployment hit its highest level since the Great Depression. Worse, thousands were dying every day.

Trump squandered the first few precious months of the pandemic. He downplayed covid’s spread (“It’s going to disappear”) and overstated the government’s capacity to respond to the crisis. His supposed “expert” advisers enabled him, including by providing pseudoscience to prop up his predictions. Meanwhile, Trump mused about treating covid with bleach injections, UV-rays and other unproven and dangerous therapies. Some of his followers adopted his advice, at great harm to themselves (and others).

Trump bungled the crisis in other ways. He openly spoke about withholding financial and public-health assistance from blue-state governors who insufficiently groveled before him. He tried to interfere with the workings of the Federal Reserve, just as it was swooping in to prevent a financial crisis.

Critically, he also dismantled much of the legal immigration system. He did so through outright immigration bans; through travel restrictions that made it harder for foreign-born nurses and other health professionals to get here, just when they were needed most; and, most enduringly, through policies that required immigrants and immigration agencies to cut through nearly impenetrable red tape. This led to major backlogs in the processing of work permits and other necessary documents, which contributed to labor shortages and ultimately inflation when the economy later reopened. Such consequences, of course, were blamed on Biden.

Yet it was Biden’s reversal of many of those Trump-era immigration policies that more recently helped lead to gangbusters job growth and cooling inflation.

The one unequivocally good thing the Trump administration did during the pandemic was expedite vaccine development through Operation Warp Speed. Since then, as his followers have disavowed covid immunizations, Trump has joined the broader anti-vax movement while measles cases rise. That bodes ill for what might happen should we suffer another national crisis, public health related or otherwise, if Trump were elected to another term.

Was the coronavirus pandemic itself Trump’s fault? Obviously not. Any president can get hit with a bad shock. The true test of leadership, however, is how one handles that shock. It’s telling that neither this former president nor his followers wish to dwell on the results.

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Economy

Minimum wage to hire higher-paid temporary foreign workers set to increase

Published

3 days ago

October 21, 2024

Anne Joseph

OTTAWA – The federal government is expected to boost the minimum hourly wage that must be paid to temporary foreign workers in the high-wage stream as a way to encourage employers to hire more Canadian staff.

Under the current program’s high-wage labour market impact assessment (LMIA) stream, an employer must pay at least the median income in their province to qualify for a permit. A government official, who The Canadian Press is not naming because they are not authorized to speak publicly about the change, said Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault will announce Tuesday that the threshold will increase to 20 per cent above the provincial median hourly wage.

The change is scheduled to come into force on Nov. 8.

As with previous changes to the Temporary Foreign Worker program, the government’s goal is to encourage employers to hire more Canadian workers. The Liberal government has faced criticism for increasing the number of temporary residents allowed into Canada, which many have linked to housing shortages and a higher cost of living.

The program has also come under fire for allegations of mistreatment of workers.

A LMIA is required for an employer to hire a temporary foreign worker, and is used to demonstrate there aren’t enough Canadian workers to fill the positions they are filling.

In Ontario, the median hourly wage is $28.39 for the high-wage bracket, so once the change takes effect an employer will need to pay at least $34.07 per hour.

The government official estimates this change will affect up to 34,000 workers under the LMIA high-wage stream. Existing work permits will not be affected, but the official said the planned change will affect their renewals.

According to public data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, 183,820 temporary foreign worker permits became effective in 2023. That was up from 98,025 in 2019 — an 88 per cent increase.

The upcoming change is the latest in a series of moves to tighten eligibility rules in order to limit temporary residents, including international students and foreign workers. Those changes include imposing caps on the percentage of low-wage foreign workers in some sectors and ending permits in metropolitan areas with high unemployment rates.

Temporary foreign workers in the agriculture sector are not affected by past rule changes.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.

— With files from Nojoud Al Mallees

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Economy

PBO projects deficit exceeded Liberals’ $40B pledge, economy to rebound in 2025

Published

7 days ago

October 17, 2024

Anne Joseph

OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.

However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.

The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.

The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.

The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.

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Economy

Statistics Canada says levels of food insecurity rose in 2022

Published

1 week ago

October 16, 2024

Anne Joseph

OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.

In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.

The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.

Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.

In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.

It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.

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