On Saturday, Donald Trump Jr. was interviewed by Breitbart, wherein he falsely claimed that President Obama’s policies led to the worst recovery in our country’s history.
“The biggest joke I’ve seen in the last two years is Obama claiming credit–trying to claim this economy, because his policies of over-taxation, oppressive regulation, guess what? That didn’t do anything. That drove this country into the ground. That led to the worst recovery in the history of probably economics but certainly our country’s history.”
President Trump then linked to the article on Twitter, quoting the headline, “Exclusive — Donald Trump Jr. to Obama: My Dad Fixed the Economy You Could Not”.
Exclusive — Donald Trump Jr. to Obama: My Dad Fixed the Economy You Could Not https://t.co/HXuSBGFmf2 via @BreitbartNews
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 16, 2018
President Obama became president during the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression. According to FactCheck.org, during President Obama’s first year in office, four million jobs were lost, on top of the four million jobs lost during President George W. Bush’s last year in office. The unemployment rate was high when Obama took office, at 7.8 percent, and peaked at 10 percent in October 2009. By the time President Obama left office, the unemployment rate was at 4.8 percent, well below the normal median rate of 5.6 percent since President Truman’s inauguration in 1949. The unemployment rate dropped three percentage points, a feat that was only topped by a drop of 3.1 percentage points during the Clinton administration and 3.2 percentage points during the Kennedy-Johnson administration.
In comparison, President Ronald Reagan had a 2.1 percent drop in the unemployment rate, while the Nixon-Ford administration had a raised unemployment rate of 4.1 percent, the Eisenhower administration had a raised unemployment rate of 3.7 percent, the George W. Bush administration had a raised unemployment rate of 3.6 percent, and the George H.W. Bush administration had a raised unemployment rate of 1.9 percent.
President Trump, on the other hand, inherited a healthy economy due to steady economic growth since the economic recovery during the President Obama administration. As of 2018, the unemployment rate is currently at 3.9 percent, which is only a 0.8 percent decrease since President Obama’s last year in office in 2016.
The photograph in the header was taken by Shannen Finney of Getty Images.
