Trump’s economy wasn’t the greatest ever. Biden’s successes are overshadowed by inflation.

👋 Welcome to Trendlines, where we hope your reentry is going OK after the long holiday weekend.

I'm Boston Globe financial columnist Larry Edelman, and today I’m parsing the economic records of Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Plus: Singing the JetBlue blues.

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Beyond the hype

Tax, spending, and other government policies are important, but US business cycles are driven by forces that are largely beyond the White House’s control.

🔎 Comparing the economy under Donald Trump and Joe Biden is especially hard because of the massive disruptions caused by COVID.

👍 Trump inherited a sound economy. During Barack Obama’s second term, gross domestic product, the broadest measure of economic growth, expanded at an average annualized rate of 2.5 percent a quarter.

↗️ GDP growth under Trump was strong but not historic.

• During Trump’s first three years, the economy grew by an average of 2.8 percent a quarter. That matched the average growth posted in the prior 35 years.

• The jobless rate fell to 3.5 percent at the end of 2019, the lowest since the late 1960s.

🔪 Trump’s signature tax cuts delivered mixed results.

• The 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act led to increases in corporate investment and modestly higher wages for workers, according to a 2024 study.

• But the study showed that investment and income gains were smaller than predicted by Republicans and the tax package failed to pay for itself as they promised, adding to the federal deficit.

↗️ The post-pandemic economic rebound continued under Biden.

• GDP expanded at an average annualized rate of 1.9 percent a quarter in 2022 and 2023, a period when the Federal Reserve was hiking interest rates to cool the economy and rein in inflation.

• Unemployment was 4.1 percent last month, down from 6.4 percent when Biden took office. 

💲 Biden’s record is marred by soaring inflation and high interest rates. 

• The consensus among economists is that pandemic-related factors were largely responsible for driving costs higher, including supply constraints, a shortage of workers, and shifts in consumer spending patterns. Heavy stimulus spending under Biden was a secondary cause.

Trump’s economic successes are exaggerated. So are Biden’s failures.

📈 Trending

Politics: President Biden told congressional Democrats he would stay in the race and called for an end to the intraparty drama that has roiled the party since his dismal public debate performance.

Aviation: Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a felony charge of conspiring to defraud the US government over two fatal crashes of the 737 Max in 2018 and 2019.

Higher Education: Columbia removed three deans from power for ‘very troubling’ antisemitic text messages.

🪂 The Closer

The Globe's Brian McGrory has some questions for JetBlue Airways president Marty St. George.

I started writing this to you from the first row of an Embraer 190 as it rattled through the sky between Boston and Baltimore like an MBTA bus with wings. If this plane interior had a color, it would be called “Soiled.” Seriously, what is it, gray, tan, some unspoken shade in between? Windows all but whistle. . . . To be clear, though, I’m not writing to complain, but to ask one simple question: What happened? And a second, more important one: Can you please fix it?

Oh, oh big ol' jet airliner.

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