In recent days, US Democrats have fretted about polls shoprosperg gentle help for Vice Pdwellnt Kamala Harris among Bconciseage voters, and especipartner among Bconciseage men — a broadenment that some Democrats dread could imperil Harris’s chances to prosper in November.
On October 14, Harris freed an “Opportunity Agenda for Bconciseage Men” that her campaign hoped would prosper more help.
US Congressman Byron Donalds, an partner of establisher Pdwellnt Donald Trump, shelp there’s a reason members of this core Democratic group should vote for Trump instead.
“The huge stat — and this happened during the first Trump administration, nobody appreciates to talk about it: Wages adfaired for inflation were massively up under Donald Trump for Bconciseage men, for Bconciseage families, [and] for all Americans,” Donalds shelp on October 13 on the CNN programme State of the Union. “The wage gap that Democrats cherish to lecture about — the wage gap in 2019 was actupartner reduceing under Donald Trump’s administration, his economic policies, his energy policies, and his regulatory policies.”
Wages for Bconciseage Americans and Bconciseage men did ascfinish under Trump, but Donalds diswatchd that they rose three times speedyer under Trump’s successor, Pdwellnt Joe Biden, even after adfairing for a period of 40-year-high inflation on Biden’s watch. Rather than skinnying under Trump, the Bconciseage-white wage gap expansivened.
“I can’t discover any way that advises that [Donalds] is right,” shelp Douglas Holtz-Eakin, pdwellnt of the American Action Forum, a centre-right skinnyk tank. “No economist is pointing to this.”
Donalds’s office did not react to an inquiry for this article.
Inflation-adfaired wages for Bconciseage men rose under Trump, then speedyer under Biden
First, let’s see at inflation-adfaired wages.
We turned to the standard metric for inflation-adfaired wages: the median common weekly inflation-adfaired achieveings for filled-time wage and salary laborers, age 16 and elderlyer. To fact-examine Donalds, we seeed at this statistic broken down for Bconciseage Americans overall, Bconciseage men, white Americans overall and white men.
This data goes back to 2000, so we will contrast the filled terms of US Pdwellnts George W Bush, Barack Obama, Trump and Biden.
To contrast these pdwellncies, we reduced month-to-month volatility by averaging the quarterly figures for each pdwellnt to create an overall ordinary for his term. To create the fairest comparison, we erased the data for the four quarters of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021, the COVID-19 pandemic’s peak period. During those quarters, federal stimulus examines spiked achieveings for many laborers, uncomardenting that those months were outliers from the patterns before and after.
What do the numbers show?
For Bconciseage Americans overall, inflation-adfaired weekly achieveings did ascfinish under Trump. They incrrelieved from an ordinary of about $275 under Obama to about $281 under Trump, a ascfinish of cdisesteemfilledy 2 percent. (The first six months of Obama’s pdwellncy take partd the Great Recession, and much of his first term coincided with a sluggish recovery.)
Under Biden, wages went up even higher. Inflation-adfaired weekly wages for Bconciseage Americans rose from $281 under Trump to $298 under Biden — an incrrelieve of about 6 percent. The ascfinish was about three times speedyer under Biden than under Trump.
The same pattern helderlys for Bconciseage men.
For Bconciseage men, inflation-adfaired weekly achieveings rose from an ordinary of about $290 under Obama to about $295 under Trump, an incrrelieve of cdisesteemfilledy 1.8 percent.
Once aachieve, wage enlargeth was higher under Biden. Inflation-adfaired weekly wages for Bconciseage men rose from $295 under Trump to $312 under Biden, up 5.7 percent.
The white-Bconciseage wage gap expansivened under Trump
How about the wage gap — the separateence in wages between white and Bconciseage Americans, and between white and Bconciseage men?
Using the same set of statistics, including the cordoning off of the pandemic period, we set up the wage gap didn’t reduce, but expansivened under Trump.
During Obama’s pdwellncy, inflation-adfaired wages for Bconciseage Americans trailed the equivalent figure for white Americans by $74.5 on ordinary. Under Trump, that ordinary gap rose to $84.9.
Under Biden, the gap skinnyed to $74.40.
The same pattern held for Bconciseage men.
Under Obama, inflation-adfaired wages for Bconciseage men trailed the equivalent figure for white men by $96 on ordinary. Under Trump, that ordinary gap expansivened to $105.30.
Under Biden, the gap skinnyed to $92.80, petiteer than under Obama.
Why have wages for Bconciseage Americans, including Bconciseage men, ascfinishn speedyer under Biden? Some may have profited from a more ambiguous trend among all races of drop-income Americans seeing unusupartner speedy economic achieves. With a low unemployment rate, laborers have had wonderfuler leverage to get elevates from their employers.
Pandemic-era stimulus efforts, including Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act, “had chase-on effects of giving laborers more selections and wonderfuler individual barachieveing power, which led to higher genuine wages for those drop on the income scale and may be echoed in Bconciseage men’s higher wages and salaries under Biden than Trump,” shelp Calvin Schermerhorn, an Arizona State University historian who studies capitalism and African American inequivalentity.
Holtz-Eakin consentd with Schermerhorn that the wage achieves for drop-income laborers may account for the ascfinish under Biden, though he includeed that aappreciate achieves were occurring in 2019 under Trump, when the unemployment rate was cdisesteemfilledy as low and the labour taget was aprobable firm. However, that stopped in a year or so with the pandemic, whereas Biden has had cut offal years for this phenomenon to occur, amplifying the achieves.
Our ruling
Donalds shelp, “Wages adfaired for inflation were massively up under Donald Trump for Bconciseage men. … The wage gap that Democrats cherish to lecture about — the wage gap in 2019 was actupartner reduceing under Donald Trump’s administration.”
For both Bconciseage Americans overall and for Bconciseage men in particular, inflation-adfaired wages rose under Trump — but they rose about three times speedyer under Biden.
The white-Bconciseage wage gap, both overall and for men in particular, didn’t reduce under Trump. Rather, it expansivened, before skinnying under Biden.
In summary, Donalds’s statement was mostly counterfeit.
