Yesterday at his news conference the President stated he had "inherited a mess, a very, very big mess". I wonder what he would have said had he been in President Obama's shoes back in January of 2009.
The economy is similar to a cruise ship moving through the seas, it can't and doesn't turn on a dime. It can take years to reverse an economic skid. And while the trend is good, yes, there is still work to be done. But the economy is not exactly a horror show.
The U.S. is in a 76 month-long period of job growth that saw the creation of 15 million new jobs. The National Unemployment rate has bee at 5% or less every month since September 2015. The broader based U-6 Unemployment rate, which includes part-time and marginally attached workers has been less than 10% for the same period.
This past January showed an increased in retail sales and with this increase in personal consumption the forecast is expected to see a gain of 2.7% this year.
"Fed officials are expressing some satisfaction with the economy’s recent performance.
Dennis Lockhart, the outgoing president of the Atlanta Fed, said recent data suggest the economy is on a “little stronger” path than he expected.
And Fed Vice Chair Stanley Fischer said the economy was warming up. He noted the unemployment rate has been falling steadily and inflation is perking up, putting the Fed close to its twin goals.
That said, Republicans like to point out that the economy’s annual growth rate has not topped 3% since 2005, and it grew an unimpressive 1.6% last year. And they think a lower level of labor-force participation is obscuring weakness in the jobs market."
~ Market Watch, Greg Robb, Senior Economics Reporter
For more information and clues to the challenges for the future here is a link to an article by Andrew Soergel, Economy Reporter for the U.S. News & World Report.
It may not have been the inheritance a Trump would have expected when the will was read, but at least it wasn't a list of all IOU's.
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