“Nobody’s ever seen a number like this!” Trump declared at a rally last October, referring to the GDP.
As it turns out, Trump was right — but not in a good way.
Across Trump’s four years in office, the nation recorded its lowest overall rate of GDP growth — at 1.6 percent — since President Herbert Hoover’s administration during the Great Depression, according to a new report from Bloomberg.
Annual GPD numbers go back to 1929, and growth was negative-7.4 percent until Hoover left office in 1933. GDP growth reached a record high of 5.5. percent under John F. Kennedy, and prior to Trump the next-lowest rate was 1.8 percent under George W. Bush. The GDP grew by a rate of 2.1 percent under Trump’s predecessor, Barack Obama.
“This is, let’s be clear from the start, not a perfect way of measuring presidential economic performance,” Bloomberg’s Justin Fox reports. “There are lots of things that determine economic growth rates other than who is in the White House, and when a president does make a difference the results may be […]