In November 2020, a 2018 version will appear that compares President Donald Trump and President Barack Obama “according to figures” on social media. The graph contains figures showing that the Trump administration outperformed the Obama administration in terms of presidential approval, unemployment, job growth, the federal deficit and gross domestic product (GDP) growth.
Divided two more years after similar posts went viral, the numbers in the posts come largely from a August 2018 CNN chart comparing Trump and Obama to about a year and a half in the presidency. However, the alleged 50% rate for President Trump has been changed from the original CNN version, which read 40%.
One such post, first shared on Facebook on September 2018, can be found here. At the time of publication of this article, the message was shared more than 17,000 times.
The post began to spread again at the end of 2020, leading both to the presidential election in 2020 (here) and to the decision by major news agents to call the race for Joe Biden (here, here and here). In these later shares, no date is given for the comparison of the figures, which may have led to the conclusion that the figures were recent. Moreover, these figures have no meaning without taking into account the wider economic context in which they are recorded.
As reported here by Snopes on August 13, 2018, President Trump’s eldest child, Donald Trump, jr., Shared the image on August 8 (here) in an Instagram that has now been removed. However, the image was “a doctored version of an image originally used during a CNN fact-checking segment about a tweet posted by President Trump about his approval numbers,” according to Snopes.
Snopes reports that CNN’s chief national correspondent John King, who reviewed a tweet dated August 5, 2018 by President Trump (here), used the image of these statistics to compare the two presidents at the same point in their terms (here). However, Donald Trump, Jr., shared a version with his father’s approval that was changed from 40% to 50%, a number higher than what Gallup, which was named CNN’s source, ever reported for Trump’s approval rating. .
This facts article will compare the president’s approval rates, unemployment figures, job growth data, federal deficit level and GDP growth over 18 months in Trump and Obama’s respective presidencies, as well as at the end of their respective terms.
APPROVAL
As reported by Gallup for the weeks of July 19-25 and July 26-August. 1, 2010, Obama’s approval, as CNN reported and subsequent social media reports claimed, was at 45% (here).
According to Gallup, Obama achieved an average of 49.7% during his presidency. Its highest was at 69% during the first few days of its presidency in January 2009, while its lowest – 38% – occurred in August and October 2011, and then again in September 2014. Obama’s final presidential candidate, taken by Gallup 17- January 19, 2017, was 59% (here)
As reported in Snopes’ 2018 fact-check, CNN, using Gallup poll data, reported a 40% approval rating for Trump – not 50% as social media reported. Indeed, Gallup is showing him with 40% approval for July 23-29, 2018 and 41% next week (here).
At the time of publication of this article, Gallup has so far not reported an approval rating of 50 or more for Trump. Its highest approval rating to date is 49%, which has happened five times, the last week of which was the week of 1 to 13 May 2020. Its lowest is 35%, which happened four times, the last week of December 11-17, 2017 (here).
President Trump’s average average so far is 41%. According to Gallup’s most recent poll, conducted on 5 to 19 November 2020, its latest approval rating is 43% (here).
UNEMPLOYMENT RATE
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the unemployment rate for July 2010, about a year and a half in the Obama administration, was 9.5% (here). One month earlier, it was 9.4%, which is consistent with the value in both the CNN graphic and social media posts (here).
The U.S. unemployment rate for July 2018, about a year and a half into Trump’s presidency, was at 3.9% (here). In June 2018, it was 4.0% (here).
The highest unemployment rate under the Obama administration was 10%, which occurred in October 2009 when the country began to recover from the Great Recession (here, here). The lowest unemployment rate during the Obama years was at the end of his presidency in December 2016 and January 2017, when it was at 4.7%. When Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, the unemployment rate was 7.8%. By the time he left office in January 2017, the unemployment rate was 4.7%.
The highest unemployment rate under Trump was 14.7% in April 2020, the start of the COVID-19 crisis in the United States (here). The lowest unemployment rate during Trump’s presidency so far was 3.5%, which occurred in February 2020 – just before nationwide shutdowns began to curb the spread of the new coronavirus. When Trump was inaugurated in January 2017, the unemployment rate was 4.7%. According to the latest BLS data, the unemployment rate in October 2020 was 6.9%.
WORKED
Reporting figures in line with the 2018 CNN chart, social media posts receiving recent shares, claim that the U.S. economy gained 3.2 million jobs under Trump and lost 2.9 million jobs under Obama.
Although the Reuters Fact Check team could not determine the exact date in Obama’s presidency when a net 2.9 million jobs were lost, it found that more than 3.6 million jobs outside the farm were lost from January 2009, the month of Obama’s inauguration, until July 2010, about a year and a half into his presidency (here). Reuters reports from 2009 on unemployment in the US in the wake of the recession is available here.
The CNN graphics and subsequent posts appear to have used non-farm payroll data as reported for May 2018, a point at which more than 3,200,000 jobs were added to the economy since January 2017, the month Trump was inaugurated (here). Between January 2017 and July 2018, nearly 3.4 million jobs were added.
According to Reuters’ calculations using BLS data (here), the US economy achieved 11.4 million jobs between January 2009 and December 2016, but the period coincides with Obama’s eight years in office.
According to preliminary BLS data for last month, the US economy has experienced a net loss of nearly 3.3 million jobs since January 2017, the month that Trump’s presidency began (here). However, between January 2017 and February 2020, just before the start of nationwide shutdowns to combat the COVID-19 pandemic, only 6.8 million jobs were added.
Federal deficit
The figures used in the graph vary between different iterations and can in any case be updated with the year-end for the relevant years. At the end of the 2009 financial year (October 2008 to October 2009), the federal government recorded a total budget deficit of $ 1.4 billion (www.cbo.gov/publication/24992), the highest level of federal deficit during the Obama administration (here). In the 2010 fiscal year, Obama’s first full fiscal year, it was $ 1.3 billion (www.cbo.gov/publication/25107).
The lowest deficit under Obama was in the 2015 financial year, when it dropped to $ 439 billion (here, here).
As reported here by Reuters, the federal deficit for the 2017 financial year, which began during Obama’s presidency and ended during Trump’s presidency, was $ 666 billion – the lowest federal deficit with Trump as president. In FY 2018, Trump’s first full fiscal year in office, it was $ 779 billion (here).
FY 2020, which began in October 2019 and ended in October 2020, had by far the highest federal deficit of Trump’s presidency due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (here). As reported on www.cbo.gov/topics/budget by the Congressional Budget Office, the federal budget deficit in FY 2020 was $ 3.1 billion.
Often these figures are expressed as part of the GDP for analysis purposes over a period of years.
GDP GROWTH
One and a half years in Obama’s presidency, the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP), defined here by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) as the “monetary value of final goods and services … produced in a country at any given time” , “grew by 1.6% in the previous quarter (January 1 – March 31, 2010) (here).
During the second quarter of 2018, GDP (here) grew by 4.2%. In August 2018, the date of the published image, CNN likely reported the advanced estimate of 4.1%.
A graph showing the annual growth rate of real gross domestic product (GDP) of the United States from 1990 to 2019 can be seen here. The GDP figures for 2020 show a major contraction due to pandemic restrictions, followed by a rebound. At the end of the third quarter, the economy was 3.5% lower than at the end of 2019, Reuters reported here.
VERDICT
Misleading. The graph gives a presidential approval for Trump that does not match Gallup data. Recent shares of this post do not specify the time frame being compared, they do not have contextual information and make a single screenshot in time, rather than the full performance of one of the presidents.
This article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team. Read more about our fact-checking work here.