Republicans and Democrats Are Living in Different Economies

Republicans and Democrats don’t just have different political beliefs and agendas these days. They are living in different economies. In his State of the Union address, President Donald Trump maintained that he had “reversed the failed economic policies of the previous administration” and thus “launched the great American comeback.” Responding for the Democrats, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer described a bleak economy that is working only for the wealthy. These stories are at odds with each other, and both are at odds with reality.

Trump was able to rattle off a string of impressive statistics about the economy’s performance. Unemployment rates have dropped, median household income is up, poverty is falling, wealth is rising. A few of those statistics were misleading — while unemployment among the disabled is at a record low, as he said, the government has only been keeping the statistics for a dozen years — but most of them hold up.