President Donald Trump has once again accepted the Republican nomination for President with the promise to fully reopen America as 2.9 million Americans have left continued unemployment claims in the past month, according to the latest data from the Department of Labor.
As of July 18, on an unadjusted basis, 16.8 million Americans were on unemployment, but as of Aug. 15, that number was down to 13.9 million, a dramatic shift of 2.9 million back into the labor force as states reopen in the aftermath of the spring lockdown response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
That should build upon the 10.1 million jobs that have been recovered since labor markets bottomed in April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ household survey.
That number had been as many as 25 million jobs lost, but with the Sept. 4 unemployment report due out, about half of those losses will have been cut in what can only be called a miraculous turnaround that few but President Trump saw coming.
President Trump cited the success in his speech, stating, “Over the past three months, we have gained over 9 million jobs, a new record.”
Here, Trump is citing the Bureau’s establishment survey, but it shows the same trajectory. Jobs are coming back to the U.S.—and fast.
The data is certainly welcome news for the Trump administration after its unprecedented response to the pandemic to shore up the economy and households by suspending foreclosures, temporarily expanding unemployment benefits, supporting and saving 5.2 million small businesses with the payroll protection program and protecting critical industries, states and local governments—all in a bid to encourage Americans to stay home during the spring.
Trump noted the small business protection, stating, “Thanks to our Paycheck Protection Program, we have saved or supported more than 50 million American jobs. As a result, we have seen the smallest economic contraction of any major western nation, and we are recovering much faster.”
Now, a V-shaped recovery is clearly forming in the data as daily COVID-19 cases temporarily stabilize and President Trump is likely to get credit for it politically as the presidential campaign is fully upon us.
President Trump predicted the rapid recovery now underway, where after the U.S. economy contracted an annualized, inflation-adjusted 31.7 percent in the second quarter according to the Bureau of Economic Analys, now the Atlanta Federal Reserve is projecting a more than 25 percent expansion of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the third quarter—a report that will be released right before the election.
More than anything, President Trump will be judged on his stewardship of the U.S. economy, where before the pandemic, unemployment had reached a 50-year low of 3.5 percent as he ended NAFTA, ratified the renegotiated U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), levied a 25 percent tariff on $250 billion of Chinese goods and another 7.5 percent on the remaining $300 billion of goods and still managed to secure a phase one trade deal with China as the trade in goods deficit with China collapsed by more than 17.6 percent in 2019, or $73.9 billion, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
If anyone can get the economy back in a hurry, it’s President Trump. In his speech, he promised, “In a new term as President, we will again build the greatest economy in history — quickly returning to full employment, soaring incomes, and record prosperity.”
In the meantime, his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden is saying he’d shut down the economy again if that’s what scientists tell him to do. But maybe that’s just so he can get a head start on truly destroying the economy with his Green New Deal that seeks zero carbon emissions by 2035 by somehow replacing more than three-fifths of our electric grid and every gasoline-consuming automobile in the country.
Here, again, Trump tore into Biden, noting, “Biden has promised to abolish the production of American oil, coal, shale, and natural gas — laying waste to the economies of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Texas, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Colorado, and New Mexico. Millions of jobs will be lost, and energy prices will soar. These same policies led to crippling power outages in California just last week. How can Joe Biden claim to be an ‘ally of the Light’ when his own party can’t even keep the lights on?”
Making matter worse, Biden voted for NAFTA and permanent normal trade with China which uses child and forced slave labor in its factories and helped to negotiate the Trans-Pacific Partnership. His record on trade is atrocious.
Here, Trump ripped his opponent, declaring, “Biden’s record is a shameful roll call of the most catastrophic betrayals and blunders in our lifetime. He has spent his entire career on the wrong side of history. Biden voted for the NAFTA disaster, the single worst trade deal ever enacted; he supported China’s entry into the World Trade Organization, one of the greatest economic disasters of all time. After those Biden calamities, the United States lost 1 in 4 manufacturing jobs… As Vice President, he supported the Trans Pacific Partnership which would have been a death sentence for the U.S. Auto Industry; he backed the horrendous South Korea trade deal, which took many jobs from our country.”
Trump added, “We’ll make sure our companies and jobs stay in our country, as I’ve already been doing. Joe Biden’s agenda is Made in China. My agenda is Made in the USA.”
In 2020, the choice is clear. While Biden will ship more jobs overseas, shut down the economy and destroy our energy industry, President Trump will bring more jobs back to the U.S., get better trade deals, reopen the economy and make the U.S. energy independent. Now, all eyes turn to the first debate between Trump and Biden on Sept. 29 as the campaign heats up. Stay tuned.
Robert Romano is the Vice President of Public Policy at Americans for Limited Government.
