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Here’s what Donald Trump is inheriting today

It's Inauguration Day, so it seems like a good time to set down for the record the state of the country that Donald Trump is inheriting. All the ending numbers for Joe Biden are below.

Some are ordinary economic stats like inflation and unemployment, while others are here only because Trump has made a big deal of them, like immigration and imports. Most are quarterly for consistency, and almost all of them go through the final quarter of 2024. There are only a few laggards.

Here's a summary:

And here are the charts, in no particular order:

27 thoughts on “Here’s what Donald Trump is inheriting today

  1. S1AMER

    Good summation of genuine facts and figures. Thanks, Kevin.

    Of course, we're moving today into a world where pesky little thinks like facts matter not at all.

  2. smallteams

    Frustrating beyond belief that this state of affairs, the best in the world, was not enough to get a Democrat elected or reelected. But we do not live in a world of facts. We live in a world of feelings, of "vibes."

    And thus we're screwed.

    1. Jasper_in_Boston

      Frustrating beyond belief that this state of affairs, the best in the world, was not enough to get a Democrat elected or reelected

      I find many aspects of contemporary US politics dismaying, but Democrats had won three elections in a row heading into last year's contest (and so were arguably due for a setback), and 2024 was the worst year for incumbents globally, perhaps ever. The ubiquity and sheer geographic scale of incumbency losses all around the world suggest Trump's victory wasn't attributable solely to unique, American awfulness.

      Perspective, please!

      https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/30/world/incumbents-elections-2024-2025-analysis-intl/index.html

    2. ScentOfViolets

      Beg to differ; it is because the state of affairs are the best they've been in a long time that precluded the election of a Democratic president. Or so I feel today, it being the double-day highest of highs and lowest of lows that it is.

    1. Joel

      Let's check in one year. We'll at least be in recession by then, if Trump follows through on his tariff and deportation promises.

    2. msobel

      There's a minor tiny problem. My understanding, (Many people say) is that DOGE is going to eliminate the wasteful agencies that keep these kind of records for a more efficient solution, more responsive and better able to serve the needs of the government.

      Outsourcing inventing this data to a Chinese firm, trained by the professionals that produce the Chinese official economic statistics. 真理部 Zhēnlǐ bù, or in English the Ministry of Truth, or as it likes to be called Minitrue.

  3. SwamiRedux

    Price of eggs?

    These numbers are great for readers of this blog, not so much for middle America. What the Democrats should be tracking and reporting monthly are things like:
    - price of eggs
    - price of a gallon of gas
    - price of a gallon of milk
    - average hourly wage
    - mortgage rates
    - cost of insurance (property and health)
    - cost of prescription drugs
    - cost of internet services

    and so on. Democrats will need to up their messaging game, something they are really bad at.

  4. tango

    Interesting, and thanks, but presenting this data implies that Joe Biden was responsible in some major way for stuff like imports and the unemployment rate. He did have some affect on the margins, and if he had set out to change things through basically vandalism, he could have changed it more. But the President generally does not control this stuff, and evaluating him on this basis is wrong.

    1. TheMelancholyDonkey

      Evaluating a president this way is, in the abstract, wrong. However, evaluating presidents this way has been demonstrated over and over again as what Americans (and pretty much everyone else) do.

      1. aldoushickman

        The two years' worth of solid and consistent growth in the S&P500 ground to a halt once DonJay was elected in November. So, another thing to thank our combover king for.

  5. Gary Goldberg

    What happens when the USG-originated statistics counter Trump claims? Will the claims change or the statistics change, and how will we know?

  6. jv

    OMG! Trump's only been president for 3 hours, but inflation has already gone down elevonty billion percent, and all Mexican immigrants self-deported to Panama, where they are going to drive a people's revolt to sell the Canal to the United States of Republican America for 2 cases of Bud Light!

    All Praise The Holy Tangerine!

    Huzzah!
    Huzzah!
    Huzzah!

  7. raoul

    As stated above, the table should have GDP at 3%. The numbers are a good starting point for the next four years and apart from the government deficit, they are very solid. It is the one reason I thought Dems would prevail in the election but I guess complacency coupled with the airing of grievances had a larger impact. For the record, as long as the deficit is below GDP growth, it should not have major negative economic consequences. We definitely should let the prior tax cuts expire and it is this issue (and Ukraine) where electing Trump will have a deleterious impact. KD, since you are a tables and graph guy, what about posting a table for the price of goods and commodities like eggs, gas, bacon, rent, etc.

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