In the past decade and a half, the US has done incredibly well economically compared to other countries. It added millions of jobs and quickly put the COVID pandemic behind it. Do things need to be “made great” again?

A lot of time, effort and money goes into presidential and national elections in the United States and this year is no exception.

But combing through the data since 2009 shows that no matter who was in power, the economy seemed to be equally driven by global events, demographic developments and decisions made in the White House.

The period from 2009 to 2024 covers both of Barack Obama’s two terms in the White House, plus the single presidential terms of Donald Trump and Joe Biden, which is slowly coming to an end.

Looking back at Obama, Trump and Biden

There were two major disruptors during this time for the economy. The first was the financial crisis that started before Obama took office and the COVID-19 pandemic that struck during Trump’s time in office.

The financial crisis led some to fear the collapse of the entire banking system. Soon afterward GM and Chrysler declared bankrupt to reorganize themselves and the housing market — specifically mortgages — was spinning out of control.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a more immediate impact on the US and global economies. Lockdowns, shortages due to delicate supply chains and the closure of borders caused chaos, deaths and massive job losses.

Partly through large stimulus checks, the US managed to get out of the pandemic slump fast, picking up where the economy left off, creating a strong recovery.

American GDP versus other giants

One problem comparing the impact presidents and their policies make is the lag in time it takes for them to make a difference. Investing in infrastructure or industries like chipmaking is necessary, but the benefits are way in the future. Tightening the border to Mexico may keep out some migrants, but the impact of missing workers takes time to hit supermarket prices.

Another problem is assessing the impact of presidents separately from decisions made together with policymakers in Congress or independent institutions like the Federal Reserve.

Since 1990, American gross domestic product (GDP) per capita has grown each year except 2009 and that was another knock-on effect of the financial crisis. Last year, the country’s GDP per capita was over $81,000 (€74,700).

At the same time, when it comes to the annual percentage of growth per capita, China and India have had stronger growth. Despite this higher growth rate, America’s per capita GDP is still three times higher than China’s and eight times higher than that of India.

In 2023, America’s overall GDP was an astounding $27.36 trillion, making it by far the biggest economy in the world. China came a distant second at $17.66 trillion, followed by Germany and Japan.

A lot of jobs for a lot of people

In the first few months of Obama’s time in office, unemployment went up because of the financial crisis. From April 2009 to September 2011, it was at 9% or more.

After that, it slowly crept down until it reached its lowest level since the 1960s, before a short-lived spike during the COVID-19 pandemic put many out of a job. This year it has hovered around 4%.

On another front, American workers are more productive than others thanks to innovation, spending on research and development, and the willingness of workers to change jobs or move.

Pay inequality at the bottom

Another measure that has increased is pay inequality. America is the most unequal country in the G7 group. The top 1% of Americans hold a huge proportion of the country’s wealth.

In the US, to get into the top 1% of earners requires an annual household income of around $1 million a year before taxes. In the UK it only takes around $250,000.

Company bosses’ pay was over 250 times more than their average employee, wrote Barak Obama in The Economist in October 2016.

Moreover, in 1979 “the top 1% of American families received 7% of all after-tax income. By 2007, that share had more than doubled to 17%,” he wrote. More positively the proportion of people living in extreme poverty fell.

Migration is changing America

The exact number of illegal crossings into the US is hard to measure. Legal migration on the other hand can be counted. One measure of this is the number of green cards granted and from 2009 to 2022 over 14 million people were given such status.

The foreign-born population living in America, legally or otherwise, has grown considerably over the past 50 years in size and share of the population, according to a report issued by the US Census Bureau in April.

In 1970, there were 9.6 million foreign-born residents. By 2022, there were over 46 million, or nearly 14% of the total population.

Of the overall total, nearly one-third of the country’s foreign-born came to the US in 2010 or later and half live in just four states: California, Texas, Florida and New York. More than half have become citizens.

High inflation comes to America

Since January 2009, inflation has gone on a wildride based on the Consumer Price Index.

When Obama took office, inflation was at zero, went into negative territory and eventually climbed to a high of 9.1% in June 2022. This past September, it was down to 2.4%, the lowest since February 2021.

This relatively short period of higher inflation is having a long afterlife and has led to big cost of living increases for many Americans.

Consumer prices are up, and voters are very unhappy about it. It is one of the most important issues this year and could decide the election in swing states. It is also one of the hardest things for any president to control.

Edited by: Uwe Hessler

Author: Timothy Rooks, Rodrigo Menegat Schuinski

Dele Momodu, a prominent member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has expressed concerns that the All Progressives Congress (APC) might overheat the polity, specifically criticizing Abdullahi Ganduje, the APC national chairman.

This was coming after the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress stated that APC is ready to capture all the South- West States. He further stated that he won’t reveal the secrets for their significant actions.

Ekwutosblog reports that Dele Momodu the Ovation magazine boss who is dissatisfied with this utterances from the APC chairman took to his instagram page and wrote ; “I don’t blame APC for such reckless statements they make from time to time…..I wished the APC chairman told us the performance indicators he predicted his comments on….APC must regard NIGERIA as their conquered territory and NIGERIANS their acquired slaves, who will continue to be cajoled or coerced into accepting their abnormalities and standard practice… I hope they not overheat the polity with this level of selfishness and carelessness”.

US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump worked the fry station at a Pennsylvania McDonald’s on Sunday, drawing attention to his claims that Democratic nominee Kamala Harris lied about previously working in the fast-food industry.

As reporters and aides watched, an employee showed the former president how to dunk baskets of fries in oil, salt them, and put them into boxes using a scoop.

“It requires great expertise, actually, to do it right and to do it fast,” Trump said with a grin, putting away his suit jacket and wearing an apron over his shirt and tie.

The visit came as he tried to counter Democratic nominee Kamala Harris’s accounts on the campaign of working at a McDonald’s while at university, an experience that Trump has claimed — without offering evidence — never happened.

A large crowd lined the street outside the restaurant in Feasterville-Trevose, a place part of akey swing voter area in Pennsylvania.

The McDonald’s itself was shut off to the public during Trump’s visit, a fact which caused some controversy online. Images circulated Sunday night of a paper stuck to the restaurant’s door saying it would be closed until 4 pm local time to “accommodate a visit at the request of former President Trump and his campaign.”

After serving bags of takeout to people in the drive-thru lane, Trump leaned out of the window, still wearing the apron, to take questions from the media staged outside.

He joked about getting one reporter ice cream and when another asked what message he had for Harris on her 60th birthday on Sunday, Trump said, “I would say, ‘Happy Birthday, Kamala,’” adding, “I think I’ll get her some flowers.”

Trump did not directly answer the question of whether he might support increased minimum wages after seeing McDonald’s employees in action, but he said, “These people work hard. They’re great.”

Trump claims Harris ‘lied about working’ at McDonald’s

Trump has fixated in recent weeks on the summer job Harris said she held while at university, working the cash register and making fries at McDonald’s. Trump says the vice president has “lied about working” there but has not offered evidence.

Representatives for McDonald’s did not respond to a message about whether the company had employment records for one of its restaurants 40 years ago.

However, in an interview last month on MSNBC, the vice president pushed back on Trump’s claims, saying she worked at the fast-food chain four decades ago when she was in university.

“Part of the reason I even talk about having worked at McDonald’s is because there are people who work at McDonald’s in our country who are trying to raise a family,” she said. “I worked there as a student.”

Trump has long spread groundless claims about his opponents based on their personal history, particularly women and racial minorities.

Before he ran for president, Trump was a leading voice of the “birther” conspiracy that baselessly claimed President Barack Obama was not an American citizen and therefore was ineligible to be president.

During his first run for president, Trump also repeated a tabloid’s claims that Texas Senator Ted Cruz’s father, who was born in Cuba, had links to President John F Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald.

Trump even said during his presidential debate with Harris that Haitian immigrants who had settled in Ohio were eating residents’ pets — a claim he suggested in an interview on Saturday was still true even though he could provide no confirmation.

Why this McDonald’s?

“It is a fundamental value of my organisation that we proudly open our doors to everyone who visits the Feasterville community,” the McDonald’s location’s owner, Derek Giacomantonio, said in a statement.

“That’s why I accepted former President Trump’s request to observe the transformative working experience that 1 in 8 Americans have had: a job at McDonald’s.”

Trump is especially partial to McDonald’s Big Macs and Filet-o-Fish sandwiches. He’s talked often about how he trusts big chains more than smaller restaurants since they have big reputations to maintain, and the former president’s staff often pick up McDonald’s and serve it on his plane.

Jim Worthington, a Trump supporter and fundraiser who owns a nearby athletic complex and chaired Pennsylvania’s delegation to the Republican National Convention, said he arranged Trump’s visit to the locally owned McDonald’s franchise.

The campaign contacted him about looking for a McDonald’s in Pennsylvania, and Worthington started searching. He got in touch with Giacomantonio through a friend and talked the franchise owner through some initial nervousness.

Giacomantonio needed to know that McDonald’s corporate offices would be OK with it, first. Second, he was concerned that being seen as a Trump supporter would hurt his business or a spark boycott, Worthington said.

“He certainly had concerns, but I eased his mind, and talked to him about the benefits,” Worthington said.