Friday, January 20, 2017

Measuring Trump - Stolen from Eric Zorn, Chicago Tribune

Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune wrote a column today setting the benchmark for measuring whether or not President Trump (I am still struggling with that title.) is making America great again.

I have stolen the figures and reposted them here.  Zorn writes:

Some of the facts and figures are up-to-date; others are a year or two old but reflect the most current available research. Sources and links are available here. And though in some cases presidents have very little influence on the numbers, they often get the credit or blame for how the numbers move.

• Public approval of Donald Trump: 40 percent
• Public approval of Barack Obama: 58 percent
• Unemployment rate: 4.7 percent
• Civilian labor force participation rate: 62.7 percent
• National average price per gallon of regular gasoline: $2.33
• Consumer confidence indexes: 113.7
• Annual inflation rate: 2.1 percent
• Median U.S. household family income: $53,889
• Percentage of the nonelderly U.S. population without health insurance: 10.4 percent.
• Poverty rates: Adults, 13.5 percent; children, 19.7 percent.
• National average 30-year fixed mortgage interest rate: 3.96 percent.
• National debt: $19.96 trillion.
• Annual federal budget deficit: $441 billion (2.6 percent of the gross domestic product)
• Financial markets: Dow Jones industrial average,19,732.40; NASDAQ, 5,540; Standard & Poors 500, 2,264.
• GDP growth rate: 3.5 percent
• Teen birth rate: 22.3 per 1,000 female teenagers
• Out-of-wedlock birth rate: 43.4 per 1,000 females
• Abortion rate: 14.6 per 1,000 females
• Number of federal prison inmates: 189,316
• Overall number of adult prisoners: 6,741,400 (about 2.7 percent of the population)
• Violent-crime victimization rate: 372.6 per 100,000 persons
• Average temperature of the world's land and ocean surfaces: 58.69 degrees Fahrenheit
U.S. high school graduation rate: 83.2 percent
• U.S. monthly international trade deficit: $45.2 billion
• Immigrants living in the U.S. illegally: 11.1 million
• Abusers of opioid drugs, including heroin: 12.7 million

To follow along, you can regularly visit The Trump Baseline