Mellman: Diving deeper — The Trump economy vs. the Biden economy 

We Democrats think it’s nuts. How could voters imagine the Trump economy was better than the Biden economy? 

But there’s little question that’s how Americans currently see it. A CBS/YouGov survey in March found 65 percent saying the economy was good under Donald Trump, but only 38 percent said the economy has been good under President Biden. 

Given the facts, Democrats lament, “how can that possibly be the case? People just aren’t remembering correctly.” 

There’s a lot of partisan cheerleading in those numbers, but the economic gap reflected here is far larger than the nation’s partisan difference.  

Uncovering the sources of this disjuncture requires separating perception from reality and recognizing there are multiple measures of reality which tell different stories. 

During the pre-COVID-19 portion of Trump’s term, voters did see the economy in a positive light compared to today. But let’s put that in context.  

The Great Recession at the end of George W. Bush’s presidency brought the economy to its knees. Public perceptions of the economy’s health plummeted.   

President Obama righted the ship, and Americans’ assessments of the economy began a more or less sustained improvement.

Trump benefited from the Obama-Biden polices, inheriting a good and improving economy. Through no effort of his own, he began his White House sojourn with consumer confidence rising to its highest point in over a decade.  

The University of Michigan’s Surveys of Consumers tell the story, with sentiment rising from 58.3 in the first quarter of the Obama administration to 97.2 by the time Trump arrived. In each quarter of 2018, the index was over 98, only to fall back slightly into the middle 90s during 2019.  

COVID brought not just a pandemic but also a recession and a precipitous fall in consumer confidence. Feelings about the economy bottomed out in 2022 at 59 and improved since then, rising to 78.4 in the first quarter of 2024. However, today’s 78.4 is considerably lower than the mid- to upper-90s registered during the pre-COVID portion of Trump’s term.  

Put simply, in the pre-COVID portion of Trump’s term, Americans were considerably happier about the economy than they have been so far under President Biden. So voters aren’t misremembering. In part, they are apparently excusing Trump for COVID’s effect on the economy.   

They shouldn’t. Trump was responsible for steering a course during COVID that cost lives and incinerated wealth. Other countries did a better job, demonstrating that it didn’t have to be that way.  

Voters also seem to attribute good times to the White House occupant at the time, failing to recognize that, in this case, the positive developments had been the handiwork of Obama-Biden.  

But frankly, that is not a matter candidates can or should re-litigate. 

So much for perceptions. What about reality? It depends on the reality you choose to focus on. 

On job creation, Joe Biden is the undisputed champion. Trump lost 2.7 million jobs during his presidency. If you exclude the COVID months, he created 6.7 million jobs. But regardless of which Trump figure you prefer, the 15.4 million jobs created by President Biden has crushed Trump’s meager results.   

Even excluding the pandemic, GDP growth averaged 2.56 percent under Trump, while under Biden, annual growth is averaging 3.45 percent. Again, advantage Biden. 

Inflation presents a different story. It was much lower under Trump, never exceeding 2.4 percent per year. Under Biden, it topped 8 percent although it is currently running at about 3.4 percent.  

Throughout Trump’s term, wage growth exceeded inflation, so people were getting ahead. Through much of Biden’s term, it’s been the other way around. Inflation is going up more than wages, leaving many feeling like they’re falling behind. 

Still, that has changed in the last year; workers are getting ahead once again, which should eventually benefit Biden.   

Voters think the Trump economy was better because, with the exception of the COVID year for which they (wrongly) don’t blame Trump, they were happier about the economy then than they are now.

If the argument I’ve made here before is right — if people live less in a “jobs economy” and more in a “cost-of-living economy,” then we can understand why they were happier.  

Their wages were increasing faster than the cost of living. They were getting ahead, not falling behind. That didn’t happen for the first part of President Biden’s term, but it is now, and that may yet affect the outcome of the next election.   

Mellman is a pollster and president of The Mellman Group, a political consultancy. He is also president of Democratic Majority for Israel.