Yes, Trump deserves credit on black unemployment

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Is President Trump singularly responsible for the record lows in black unemployment rates?

No.

But does Trump deserve significant credit for those low rates?

Yes.

I note this in light of Trump’s tweet on Monday celebrating his record on black unemployment rates. But what does the data actually say?

Well, most importantly, the numbers show that Trump is broadly correct. While the black labor participation rate remains lower than its historic highs in the late 1990s, it has improved under Trump. And while the December 2019 black unemployment rate ticked up slightly to 5.9%, it reached just 5.4% in August and is down from 7.5% at the start of Trump’s term in January 2017.

Noting that the rate has been falling since September 2011, some commentators, such as the Washington Post’s Eugene Scott, suggest that Trump deserves little credit here. They say President Barack Obama’s policies are largely responsible for the improvement and that Trump simply hasn’t made things worse.

I disagree.

For a start, the Obama administration’s economic recovery following the Great Recession was terribly slow. Hampered by over-regulation and government control over capital allocation, Obama left office with a weaker economy than should have been expected. But we must also pay notice to the fact that the unemployment rate has continued to fall even as the economy has grown stronger. As economic slack has fallen, we would have expected the black unemployment rate to plateau. That it has kept falling is reflective of a fundamentally strong economy with Trump at the helm.

Again, how much of this comes down to Trump’s policies?

I would suggest quite a bit. True, Trump’s income tax cuts and refusal to pursue entitlement reform may have blown up the deficit. That said, the corporate tax cuts have correlated with increased hiring across the skills spectrum and sustained investment (albeit not to the degree we wished for). Trump’s criminal justice reform efforts also match up with increased corporate practices toward hiring ex-felons. That these positive results are occurring alongside Trump’s tariff wars makes them all the more impressive.

Still, what’s also striking here is the degree to which Democrats won’t give Trump even a little credit for these improvements. It’s a shame. This data speaks to lives made better with new opportunities and financial independence. That’s something we all should celebrate, whichever side of the aisle we come down on.

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