The Patriot Post® · Trump's Economic Policies Benefit Minorities

If the 2017 jobs scene is any indication of what the year 2018 is going to look like, then America’s economy is going to continue to grow at levels we haven’t seen in over a decade. And despite the Left’s continuing rants about Trump being a racist, the December jobs report tells a completely different story.

Recall that during Trump’s campaign for the presidency, he specifically told black voters his economic agenda would do far more for them than Hillary Clinton’s — or that of any other Democrat candidate in history. In an unscripted portion of a speech given in Dimondale, Michigan, he said, “You’re living in poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58% of your youth is unemployed — what the hell do you have to lose?”

Like every other Republican for a generation, Trump received only 8% of the black vote on Election Day, but based on employment numbers for blacks, at least those 8% can feel vindicated. In the speech mentioned beforehand, Trump also promised that after his first four years he would win 95% of the black vote during his re-election bid — something that no Republican candidate has done since Reconstruction. Let’s just say that his comment was typical Trumpian boasting, but it’s something that perhaps ought to come true.

So what of the jobs numbers? The Wall Street Journal reported that headline unemployment remained at 4.1% with the economy creating 148,000 new jobs. The U-6 number, a better, fuller measure, sits at 8.1% — a far cry better than its high of 17% under Barack Obama. But one figure that really jumped out at economists was the headline rate of unemployment for black Americans, which fell to 6.8%, the lowest it has been since the Bureau of Labor Statistics started tracking employment data in 1972. That’s a 45-year timeframe, and it’s great news as we start 2018.

The Journal further notes, “The black jobless rate fell into the 7%-8% range in 1999-2000, before the dot-com bubble burst, and briefly in 2007 before the financial panic. But it climbed back to as high as 16.8% in 2010 before a long, slow decline as the economy recovered.” But now it’s at 6.8% and the number is likely to go down further once Trump’s economic agenda kicks into full gear.

But wait, there’s more. It turns out that it’s not just black Americans benefiting from the economic gains during Trump’s first year in office. Overall, minorities across the board have seen the greatest gains in employment. “Over the past year, the unemployment rate has dropped 17% for Hispanics, 14% for African Americans and 11% for Asians.” Hispanics have seen unemployment drop to record-low levels, standing at 4.9% in December, and Asians have seen unemployment drop to a record low of 2.5%.

So, the question remains, are Trump’s economic policies and ambitions for economic growth really racist as so many leftists claim? Of course not. In fact, Trump’s deregulation and Republican tax cuts benefit everyone.

The Left, of course, will hear none of this and will continue to paint Trump as a racist while Democrats who run America’s cities push destructive socialist policies that left our economy stagnant for nearly a decade. Democrats are hoping the policies that have kept minorities on urban poverty plantations for years will prevail, and you can bet that they and their Leftmedia allies will do everything imaginable to undermine Trump’s successes.

Leftists can’t stand that his economic agenda is producing positive results for Americans. They can’t stand that there is economic optimism among most Americans that we haven’t seen in over a decade. And they really can’t fathom how a man who has been slammed by the media for the past year as being a sexist, racist, bigoted and, most recently, “mentally unfit” for office has somehow managed to produce more positive results for Americans in his first year of office than his predecessor did in eight years. Their socialist, utopian dreams have been shattered, and frankly, that’s making America great, again.