Other Policies Aided Black Community
African Americans face structural inequalities in access to wealth, health care and encounters with the criminal justice system compared with whites, according to the Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank. Obama-era policies have disproportionately affected this group.
Matt Dallek, political historian at George Washington University, told USA TODAY that African Americans benefited from the economic recovery of the 2010s as well as the Affordable Care Act of 2009.
“An estimated 20 million people health care and hundreds of thousands or maybe millions of people got onto Medicaid through Medicaid expansion,” Dallek said. “Not an insignificant percentage of people helped by those two pieces of legislation were, of course, African Americans,”
Health insurance coverage improved for all racial groups under the ACA, according to a March report by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The overall uninsured rate fell from 15.1% to 8.9% from 2009-18, according to an article in the Duke University Journal of Health, Politics and Law, and the rate of non-elderly uninsured African Americans fell from nearly 20% in 2010 to 11.5% in 2018. Expanded insurance coverage is listed as one of the Obama administration’s key accomplishments on behalf of the African American community.
Data from the Education Department support this figure. The four-year adjusted cohort graduation rate for African Americans enrolled in public school was 73% from 2013-14.
Network Neutrality And Government Use Of Information Technology
In a June 2006 podcast, Obama expressed support for telecommunications legislation to protect network neutrality on the Internet, saying: “It is because the Internet is a neutral platform that I can put out this podcast and transmit it over the Internet without having to go through any corporate media middleman. I can say what I want without censorship or without having to pay a special charge. But the big telephone and cable companies want to change the Internet as we know it.”
Obama reaffirmed his commitment to net neutrality at a meeting with employees in November 2007, at which he said, “once providers start to privilege some applications or web sites over others, then the smaller voices get squeezed out, and we all lose.” At the same event, Obama pledged to appoint a Chief Technology Officer to oversee the U.S. government’s management of IT resources and promote wider access to government information and decision making.
In a February 2014 official blog post titled “We The People Response: Reaffirming the White House’s Commitment to Net Neutrality”, the Obama administration, via Chief Technology OfficerTodd Park, once again reaffirmed its commitment to net neutrality by stating, “Preserving an open Internet is vital not to just to the free flow of information, but also to promoting innovation and economic productivity.TheTrump administration has repealed net neutrality
Trump Compared To Obama
When comparing the two presidents, the number of jobs added pre-pandemic is a good barometer for success. Under Trump, in the three years prior to the pandemic, there were an additional 6.4 million jobs. In the last three years under Obama, seven million jobs were added.
The economy is a key point for many voters, and any positive swings in job numbers bodes well for Donald Trump heading into the November Election.
As the Trump-Obama jobs comparison comes into focus, the data also shows that the jobless rate is improving faster than the national average in counties that had the most dramatic swings from former President Barack Obama to President Donald Trump back in 2016.
Of the 10 Obama-voting counties which had the greatest shifts to Trump, and for which BLS data was available, nine had a lower unemployment rate in July than the U.S. level of 10.2 percent for the same month.
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Americans With Health Insurance
Obama made it one of his top goals to get more Americans covered by health insurance. The number of Americans lacking health insurance went from more than 48 million people in 2010 down to 28 million after the passage of the Affordable Care Act.
The uninsured rate has remained low under Trump, though it ticked up slightly after Trump did away with the penalty for American adults who dont buy health insurance. Trump also made it a goal to repeal the Affordable Care Act, but that has not happened in his first term.
Despite The Stimulus And Assurances Of A Peak Unemployment Rate Of No More Than 8% Unemployment Continued To Rise In 2009 Until It Reached 10% In The Fall It Turned Out The Shovels Werent Ready Unemployment Then Stayed Above 8% For More Than Three
In her Rep. Joyce Beatty criticizes Phil Gramm and Mike Solon for giving credit to President Trump for the performance of the economy, claiming instead that President Obama gift wrapped a great economy and hand delivered it to President Trump.
It is true that president Trump inherited an economy that was doing reasonably well. This was mainly the result of the Federal Reserves extremely accommodative monetary policies since 2008. It was also the result of the extraordinary ability of a free-market economy to bounce back from adversitya process that is poorly understood by those who worship at the altar of big government. If anything, the Obama administration impeded this process by piling on regulations and restrictions.
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Large Increase In The Share Of Americans With Health Insurance
Perhaps the Obama administrations single greatest accomplishment for middle- and working-class families was the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010. The ACA has expanded health care coverage to an estimated 20 million adults, resulting in the largest drop in the share of Americans without health insurance since the creation of Medicaid and Medicare in the 1960s. Indeed, the uninsured rate has almost fallen by half, from 16 percent to 8.8 percent between 2010 and 2016. At the same time, health care cost growth has moderated, some of which is attributable to the ACA. For the millions of American workers who receive health insurance through their employer, slower cost growth also means that health costs take a smaller bite out of their paychecks than they otherwise would.
The intense public backlash in recent months to efforts to repeal the ACA demonstrate how it has improved the lives of millions of Americans. The coverage expansion has not only been improving access to care but is also protecting families from financial hardship. Fewer familiesespecially low- and moderate-income onesreport difficulty paying medical bills. Indeed, one study comparing consumer credit reports in states that have and have not expanded Medicaid found that the Medicaid expansion reduced the amount of debt sent to collection by $600 to $1,000 per person who has gained coverage.
The Trump Vs Obama Economy In 16 Charts
As the United States suffers the worst economic downturn in nearly a century, key questions remain: How quickly can the nation recover, and who has the better track record to get us there?
The dire job losses from the spring are close to half recovered, but 13.6 million workers remain unemployed. Stocks are back near record highs, but food bank lines are long and evictions in parts of the country are growing.
The 2020 presidential election will be, at least partly, about the economy. President Trump argues the economy was soaring pre-pandemic and he can bring it back again, while former vice president Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee, argues the nation wouldnt be in such bad shape if Trump hadnt fumbled the handling of the pandemic. Biden says he can get people working again and points to the Obama administrations track record after the Great Recession. Trump portrays the Obama era as sluggish.
The pandemic recession triggered more than 22 million job losses, modern-day bread lines and millions of pay cuts. Even before the pandemic hit, the picture was mixed. Manufacturing, business investment and growth were slowing noticeably heading into 2020.
While theres ongoing debate about how much influence presidents really have over the economy, the charts below illustrate the trends under then-President Barack Obama and Trump.
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Unemployment Reached A Half
The unemployment rate measures the share of the labor force that is jobless and seeking work. It fluctuates based on economic conditions and rises during downturns, as it did during the Great Recession over a decade ago.
The rate reached a high of 10% in October 2009, and it steadily fell during Obama’s presidency. When Trump took office in January 2017, it stood at 4.7%.
The unemployment rate dropped to a half-century low of 3.5% in February 2020. Once the pandemic slammed the economy, businesses shuttered and people stayed home to curb the spread of the virus. It caused unemployment to soar to nearly 15% in April a joblessness level unseen since the Great Depression.
It declined as businesses reopened and the economy regained a portion of the lost jobs. Now the unemployment rate stands at 7.9%.
Unemployment Rates Under President Eisenhower
Eisenhower inherited low unemployment rates when he took office, but they rose sharply with the recession of 1953. They recovered somewhat during the mid-1950s but climbed rapidly again in the recession of 1958. They dropped somewhat before climbing even higher at the end of his presidency in the recession of 1960-61.
When Eisenhower left office, unemployment rates were much higher than they were when he first moved into the Oval Office .
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Is Trump Right A Look At What Obama’s Done For Black Community
This weekend, ever-opinionated billionaire candidate for president Donald Trump lowed the boom on President Obama on the often discussed issue of what the first black President has done for African Americans.
“He has done nothing for African Americans. You look at what’s gone on with their income levels. You look at what’s gone on with their youth. I thought that he would be a great cheerleader for this country. I thought he’d do a fabulous job for the African-American citizens of this country. He has done nothing,” Trump said.
“They have problems now in terms of unemployment numbers, look at their unemployment numbers. And you have here you have a black president who’s done very poorly for the African Americans of this country,” Trump added.
But is Trump correct? It depends on whether you can blame the President for every single role the federal government may or may not have in the specific lives of all Americans. It’s also hard to deny the role of discrimination in hiring and opportunity in America — a point that was made by Hillary Clinton at the National Urban League Conference last week.
Let’s take a statistical look at seven major issues that have always been important in the African American community and what the numbers were as President George W. Bush left office and what they are now.
Unemployment Fell Under Obama
In 2009, the U.S. entered an economic recession rivaling the Great Depression of the 1930s, USA TODAY reported. The overall unemployment rate jumped from 5.8% in 2008 to 9.4% in 2009 and reached a record high of 9.6% in 2010, according to the BLS. Black unemployment was nearly 5 to 6 percentage points higher, at 14.8% in 2009 and 16% in 2010.
Among the first laws passed under the Obama administration, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, provided for $787 billion in education, health care, infrastructure and renewable energy investments to help spur the economy. The cost of the stimulus was later revised to $831 billion between 2009 and 2019, according to government transparency website GovTrack.
The act also established temporary relief programs for Americans most affected by the recession. It passed in the Senate on Feb. 13, 2009, with no Republican votes, according to the U.S. Senate website.
The Congressional Budget Office the ARRA for increasing the number of full-time jobs up to 200,000 in 2014 and the number of people employed that year by 100,000 to 300,000. The act also spurred slow but steady job growth for African Americans.
From 2011 to early 2020, Black unemployment dropped to the lowest rate in recorded history, according to the Wall Street Journal. BLS records support this find the rate inched downward in 2011 and began a rapid decline in 2012.
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The Stock Market Has Grown Under Trump As Well As Obama And Bush Though Recessions Have Slammed It
The benchmark S& P 500 measures the market capitalization-weighted stock performance of 500 large corporations listed on US exchanges. It’s one of Trump’s favorite scorecards to measure his economic record, though many economists say the stock market doesn’t fully reflect the economy.
The S& P 500 ticked upward for most of Bush’s presidency. It then took a severe hit during the Great Recession, though it started a rapid rebound early on in Obama’s tenure.
Stocks made considerable gains under Obama, which continued when Trump took office promising tax cuts and deregulation. Then the pandemic floored the stock market, causing it to plunge roughly 30% in March.
But a rebound catalyzed by swift economic-relief efforts and market-leading gains in tech juggernauts like Amazon and Google parent Alphabet have again pushed stocks near new highs.
Oil Production And Imports
The increase in crude oil production that began under Obama continued under Trump, soaring to new record highs before COVID-19 contributed to a decline in 2020.
The 4.1 billion barrels produced last year were still more than in any year other than 2019, when nearly 4.5 billion barrels were produced, according to the Energy Information Administration. Even with the down year, crude oil production was up 27.6% in 2020 compared with 2016.
Increased domestic production under Trump led to fewer annual crude oil imports, which were down 25% in 2020 from four years earlier. The total number of imported crude oil barrels in 2020 2.15 billion was the lowest total since 1991.
However, while the U.S.again became a net exporter of petroleum products last year, it remained a net importer of crude oil, specifically, the EIA said.
Editors note: In January, we plan to publish our first quarterly report on President Joe Biden.
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Economic Policy Of The Barack Obama Administration
| This article is part of a series about |
The economic policy of the Barack Obama administration, or “Obamanomics” was characterized by moderate tax increases on higher income Americans, designed to fund health care reform, reduce the federal budget deficit, and decrease income inequality. President Obama’s first term included measures designed to address the Great Recession and subprime mortgage crisis, which began in 2007. These included a major stimulus package, banking regulation, and comprehensive healthcare reform. As the economy improved and job creation continued during his second term , the Bush tax cuts were allowed to expire for the highest income taxpayers and a spending sequester was implemented, to further reduce the deficit back to typical historical levels. The number of persons without health insurance was reduced by 20 million, reaching a record low level as a percent of the population. By the end of his second term, the number of persons with jobs, real median household income, stock market, and real household net worth were all at record levels, while the unemployment rate was well below historical average.
Comparison With Subsequent Administrations
President Trump often disparaged the economic record of Barack Obama during both the Obama and Trump presidencies, often using false or misleading statistics. However, on many key variables Trump compared unfavorably with President Obama’s record through year three of Trump’s presidency , while other variables continued trends established during the Obama era.
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One Chart Shows How Obama’s Job Performance Compares With His Predecessors
The economy today is far from perfect, but as Barack Obama leaves office, he is leaving it far better than he found it.
In fact, Obama ends his administration with the second-largest drop in the unemployment rate during a presidency since the New Deal helped pull the nation out of the Great Depression. The rate under Obama is bested only by the one under Bill Clinton, which fell from 7.3 percent in January 1993 to 3.9 percent in December 2000.
As Obama took office amid the depths of the recession, the unemployment rate was 7.8 percent. Last month, it was 4.7 percent.
Although it was a large drop, average unemployment during Obama’s presidency was relatively high, at 7.4 percent.
As the accompanying chart shows, unemployment in the United States has fallen under every Democratic president but Jimmy Carter. It rose under every Republican president but Ronald Reagan.
Yet those trends may not mean as much as they suggest. Although the popular narrative runs otherwise, economists typically argue that presidents have little control over the economy, at least compared with the strength of the business cycle, the pace of technological innovation and the events in the global economy. And the sample size here – just 11 presidents – is way too small to draw sweeping conclusions.
