Former President Donald Trump repeated a series of inaccurate claims about the economy in an interview with television station WGAL-TV in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Here’s an overview.
Trump’s policies “created the greatest and strongest economy in the history of our country and perhaps in the history of the world.”
Economists previously told PolitiFact that this was false.
The strongest evidence supporting this claim, at least in the US context, is the unemployment rate. Under President Trump’s watch, the unemployment rate has fallen to levels not seen since the early 1950s.
But the annual growth rate of gross domestic product (a country’s total economic activity) was about the same under Trump as it was during the last six years of his predecessor, Barack Obama. And the GDP growth rate under the Trump administration was significantly lower than the growth rate of previous presidents.
Wage growth also failed to set records during the Trump administration. After adjusting for inflation, wages started rising during the Obama era and continued to rise under the Trump administration. However, this was modest compared to the 2% per year seen during his 1960s.
Another measure, inflation-adjusted growth in per capita consumer spending, was no faster under Trump than under previous presidents. For many families, this statistic helps with economic returns, determining how much they can spend on food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and travel.
During President Trump’s three years in office, which ended in January 2020, real per capita consumption increased by 2% annually. Of the three non-overlapping years from 1929 to the end of his presidential term, President Trump ranks 12th from the bottom.
Biden “ruined it because he messed up energy so much that inflation went crazy.”
Gasoline prices are higher now than they were during the Trump administration, and much of the blame lies with factors outside of Biden’s control.
Experts say Biden’s policies may have had a small impact on gas prices. But gas prices, whether high or low by historical standards, are almost always not something a president can significantly control.
Gasoline prices initially rose on Biden’s watch as the economy recovers from the worst of the pandemic. As economic activity, commuting and travel rebounded, fuel demand grew faster than global supply.
Then, in February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. NATO countries and allies sought to reduce purchases of Russian crude oil as punishment for the Russian war that disrupted supplies. And other major oil producers, such as Saudi Arabia, have largely resisted calls to increase production to fill the gap.
Although prices have fallen since their peak in summer 2022, overall global oil prices remain high as a result.
Trump’s lower average prices were shaped by the opposite phenomenon experienced by Biden. Most of Trump’s last term took place during the early days of the pandemic, when car use plummeted. This caused gasoline prices to fall to abnormally low levels.
Meanwhile, one factor over which Mr. Biden has some control: U.S. oil production, some of which is produced on federal land, has set records that Mr. Biden has focused on.
“Inflation is at an all-time high. … Inflation continues. It’s not going down at all.”
The first part of President Trump’s statement was valid in the summer of 2022, but not now.
The highest inflation rates in the United States were recorded in the 1970s and early 1980s, when annual price increases sometimes hovered between 12% and 15%. The top tax rate under Biden’s eye was about 9% in the summer of 2022.
But since then, inflation has declined. The year-over-year change in March 2024, the latest month available, was 3.5%.
President Trump has a point as to whether inflation is “entrenched.”
Inflation has consistently declined from a peak of 9% to around 3% from June 2022 to June 2023. However, since then, year-on-year inflation has rebounded to between about 3% and 3.5%. The Fed wants to keep sustained inflation close to 2%, which it believes is still too high to start cutting rates.
“In California, (gasoline) sells for $7 a gallon.”
This is wrong.
California’s statewide average gas price is $5.23, higher than the national average ($3.77). But it’s way short of $7.
More importantly, of the 10,526 gas stations in California tracked by GasBuddy.com, on the day of President Trump’s interview, according to data provided by GasBuddy gas price analyst Patrick DeHaan, There wasn’t a single place where gas was priced at $7 a gallon.
“We have recorded the highest number of employees ever.”
This is incorrect.
During President Trump’s entire term, the United States lost a net 2.7 million jobs. By comparison, every president since Harry Truman (who served from 1945 to 1953) has won office during his term.
Timing is important when looking at job creation patterns under a president. For Trump. The coronavirus pandemic occurred during his fourth year in office. The resulting rapid economic contraction wiped out all the job growth he had overseen, then some.
But just looking at the pre-pandemic period, President Trump’s job creation record was not the best of the past five presidents, much less of the past five presidents.
Trump oversaw job growth of 4.6% in his first three years in office. Two other presidents, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton, posted larger increases of about 10% and 8%, respectively.
“I delivered the largest tax cut in the history of our country, surpassing Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts. And the people who benefited the most were low-income people.”
Both parts of this statement are incorrect.
The part about the biggest tax cuts is a lie that President Trump has repeatedly shared during his presidency. (Our colleagues at The Washington Post Fact Checker found this to be President Trump’s second most repeated false claim, shared 295 times during his presidential term.)
The tax bill signed by President Trump was the fourth largest since 1940 in inflation-adjusted dollars and the seventh largest as a percentage of GDP.
However, based on models from the Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute Brookings Institution and other think tanks, it’s “incorrect” that low-income taxpayers receive more benefits, said the tax policy center’s communications director. John Buhl told PolitiFact earlier this month. .
An analysis by the Tax Policy Center found that while the bill signed by President Trump would reduce taxes for households in every income bracket on average, it would benefit taxpayers in higher-income households the most.
For example, the bottom fifth of taxpayers, those with incomes up to $25,000, would see their average federal tax rate fall by 0.4 percent in 2018. The decline in tax rates increases with each successive fifth of the income range. , the top fifth saw their tax rates fall by 1.8 percentage points. The biggest benefits would go to households in the top 1% to 5% of income earners ($307,900 to $732,000). Tax rates will fall by 3.1 percentage points.
The numbers were similar for changes through 2025, according to a study by the Tax Policy Center.
PolitiFact senior correspondent Amy Sherman, PolitiFact staff writers Samantha Putterman and María Ramírez Uribe, and PolitiFact North Carolina staff writer Paul Specht contributed to this article.