President Trump should be discussing nothing but the economy in these final days before the midterm elections. The economy is just that fantastic right now.
According to a new Labor Department report, unemployment is at a near-50-year low after 250,000 new jobs were created in October, blowing expectations out of the water. The healthcare industry added 36,000 jobs, and nearly 100,000 jobs were added to the manufacturing, construction, transportation, and warehousing industries. Most importantly, wage growth passed 3 percent for the first time since the recession, even as the inflation rate has effectively plateaued, meaning that workers aren’t just seeing an overheated economy, but real, tangible growth.
For all of the president’s complaints about the Federal Reserve raising rates, clearly the Trump economy has thrived anyway. GDP growth has consistently outpaced inflation in 2018, even as the inflation rate makes inevitable and modest increases as the economy continues to boom.
[Read: Another booming quarter, and even Democrats can’t complain about the economy]
Nevertheless, Trump has centered his final midterm messaging around immigration policy, a point that galvanizes his base. With numbers like these, he ought to refocus on the economy, a point that galvanizes everyone. He can directly credit the GOP tax cuts, but probably more importantly, his removal of Obama-era regulations, his Department of Health and Human Service’s recent initiatives to drive down healthcare prices, and his ability to encourage employer and consumer confidence, even as the stock market underperforms.
In fact, the stock market and factors he’s not responsible for — such as the higher-education bubble and the luxury-housing bubble threatening to pop in largely liberal cities — are the only quantifiable dull spots on a glittering economy.
Numbers like these call for a pivot in messaging. Trump, love him or hate him, apparently told the truth when he said that he’ll make America work again.
