The stock market is through the roof. Consumer confidence is at a 15-year high. And this morning, in the first full monthly jobs report from the Labor Department, comes news that the country added 235,000 jobs in February. That pace is about the same as it was the month before and about double the average monthly gain of the Obama years.
Is this what animal spirits look like? And how much credit goes to President Trump?
Jamie Dimon, CEO of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co., told Bloomberg News earlier this week that Trump has apparently “woken up the animal spirits.” He gave the Trump team credit for what has been a big post-election economic bounce.
“If you look at the policy—forget the tweets, look at the people on the ground, they’re top professionals,” Dimon said. “Serious people, with deep knowledge and deep experience—and their mission if to have a growth agenda. And that agenda is reducing corporate taxes; starting to build infrastructure, which we desperately need; reducing some of the regulatory regime, which has probably held back growth.”
Polls consistently show that Americans rank the economy as the country’s most important issue. But in the Trump presidency so far, other issues—immigration, travel restrictions, health care, allegations of Russian influence and wiretapping—have dominated the headlines. By Friday afternoon, some new mini-crisis will probably emerge to knock the economic news off front pages.
One missing piece of information about the Trump economy, which we won’t know until late next month, is what is going on with economic growth. Those figures are released quarterly, with the release for the first quarter of 2017 scheduled for April 28. Recall that President Trump has established a goal of 4 percent annual growth, which would be about double the figure of the Obama years. Many economists are skeptical that that rate is achievable.
On jobs, the 235,000 created in February comes after the 238,000 in January and are more than the 117,000 a month average that were created under Obama. Except retail, every major sector added jobs, including manufacturing, construction, health care, and even government.
Trump was all over it on Twitter, retweeting within minutes a Drudge Report headline: “GREAT AGAIN: +235,000.” A different survey earlier in the week reported even more jobs created, but Friday’s Labor Department report is considered the definitive word.
On anti-Trump websites and social media today, expect a lot of talk about the Obama economy Trump inherited: the six-plus years of consistent Obama job growth, the pulling America back from the cliff of recession, that kind of thing.
Of course, there are some warning signs. The Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise interest rates next week to guard against inflation. Wage growth has been sluggish, though there were some encouraging signs in Friday’s report. The effect of Trump’s trade policies are uncertain. And it remains an open question how much tax and regulatory reform can be accomplished in Washington, and how soon.
But when you’re the president, rightly or wrongly, you receive the credit or take the blame for the economy on your watch.
President Clinton is associated with the go-go 1990s. President Bush was widely blamed for the 2008-2009 recession. President Obama receives credit for job growth. And President Trump is allowed to claim an early victory for an economy that seems to be shifting into high gear.
