ECONOMY AT PRESIDENTS' FIRST 22 MONTHS

A recent article on CNBC compared the first 22 mo. of recent presidents to check on Trump's claim that his economy is the greatest ever.*  The reference includes four figures with accompanying text.  It turns out that while Trump's record is good, it is in about the middle of the pack for economy growth in the first 22 months.  I think it wouldn't be right for me to reproduce all the four figures here, so I'll do just one, and you can bring up the reference to read the whole article.

Until recently President Trump has touted the growth of the stock market as a sign of his success with the economy, but the figure below shows that the record belongs to ---- Obama!  Surely Trump's stock market record has been good. He comes in 3rd place, but not the best.

(click on figure to enlarge)

There is also a figure and text on Job Gains (Trump comes in 4th behind  Jimmy Carter, the clear winner, followed by Bill Clinton and John Kennedy.  On gains in Gross Domestic Product, Jimmy Carter again is the clear winner closely followed by Jack Kennedy and Gerold Ford with Trump in 5th place closely followed by Barack Obama.  On Wages, the winner is John Kennedy closely followed by Richard  Nixon, then Jimmy Carter, and Gerold Ford with Trump 5th.

Please note that Trump's first 22 months does not rank first in any of the four categories.  Trump's best ranking is 3rd and that is on the stock market.

In view that some claim that Jimmy Carter was one of or the worst Presidents, it should be noted that his economy was very good.  He came in 1st in both Job Gains and GDP plus 3rd place on Wage Gains.  Though I didn't like him as President, in hindsight, he looks very good,  He got more than 70% of his program through and settled the Panama Canal issue against strong Republican opposition.  One shouldn't forget, of course, the peace treaty between Egypt and Israel.

A special note needs to be included on President Lynden Johnson whose first term lasted only 13 months.  For example, Johnson was the leader on wage gains at 13 mo. and higher even than Kennedy and Nixon after 22 mo.  On GDP and wage gains, Johnson was 2nd and 3rd on stock market gains if just the first 13 mo. are counted.

* https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/03/trumps-campaign-claims-about-his-economic-record-just-dont-add-up.html