Did Trump Create Or Inherit A Strong U.S. Economy?

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence spoke on the third night of the Republican National Convention, praising the Trump administration's economic prowess. He urged voters ask themselves "who do you trust to rebuild this economy? A career politician who presided over the slowest economic recovery since the Great Depression? Or a proven leader who created the greatest economy in the world?"

President Trump has often taken credit for building the pre-pandemic U.S. economy, most notably in his State of the Union address earlier this year. When the Obama administration left office, the economy had experienced 76 consecutive months of job growth, a streak that extended to 113 months under Trump before the pandemic struck with a vengeance. Likewise, unemployment fell from 10 percent at the height of the recession under Obama to 4.7 percent when he left office. It continued to fall under Trump until the latest economic catastrophe occurred.

Obama inherited the economy in the midst of the financial crisis, a situation former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke called “the worst financial crisis in global history, including the Great Depression". The following infographic provides an overview of real GDP growth in the U.S. since George W. Bush's second term in office kicked off through the use of Federal Reserve data. Real GDP is an inflation-adjusted measure that reflects the value of all goods and services produced by an economy in a given year.