MSNBC's Morning Joe explains why the American economy is “the envy of the world.”
Steve Rattner: “It was the things that were passed in the Biden administration: the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the CHIPS Act. Three major pieces of legislation that brought investment back.”
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From the October 31, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe.
JOE SCARBOROUGH (CO-HOST): The top banner headline of The Wall Street Journal, the “U.S. Economy Extends Growth Streak." The next president inherits, this is the headline, quote “a remarkable economy." Let me just read you the first two paragraphs:
“Whoever wins the White House next week will take office with no shortage of challenges, but at least one huge asset: an economy that is putting its peers to shame.
“With another solid performance in the third quarter, the U.S. has grown 2.7% over the past year. It is outrunning every other major developed economy, not to mention its own historical growth rate."
And, Willie, The Wall Street Journal concludes, this is not happening by magic. It is not happening because of government intervention. It's happening because American people and American businesses are more productive today than ever before.
WILLIE GEIST (CO-HOST): Yeah, absolutely. It's the front page, as you said, of the The Wall Street Journal: “U.S. Economy Extends Growth Streak.” Growth 2.8%, pushing up against that 3% number. We'll get an inflation number today. And then that jobs number tomorrow, all just days ahead of the election.
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GEIST: Let's dive right into your charts. U.S. economic growth, as we just pointed out, leading the world. We’ve heard this, by the way, from economist after economist. Republicans even conceding, many of them, that the American economy is the envy of the world.
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STEVE RATTNER (MORNING JOE ECONOMIC ANALYST): Let’s put this into historical perspective. We’re going to compare the U.S. to the other major economies of the world. And you go back to 1980, you can see the growth rates weren't all that different. But around the 2000 period, we just took off. We left them in the dust. We've continued to leave them in the dust. And, in fact, the IMF last week came out with new projections that show our growth is going to accelerate even more relative to these other countries.
And let me also though, since we are going to have an election next week, do a scorecard here on the last two presidents. Donald Trump thinks this economy is in the toilet. In fact, under Joe Biden, it grew faster than it did under Donald Trump — 3.1% average GDP growth under Biden, 2.8% under Trump. And this corrects for all the COVID things. These are straight down the middle of the fairway numbers.
And then you can see that that growth has turned into a much stronger economic performance for average Americans. GDP per capita is a way to think about standard of living. Not perfect measure, but it’s directionally right. You can see that we generate $74,000 of GDP per person, and that has doubled over this period of time. And no other country has come close to that: $54,000, $54,000, $46,000. And so, from 1983 to 2023, we doubled this. And we are again, as you said earlier, the envy of the world when it comes to the standard of living that Americans have.
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RATTNER: The U.S. is considered the most attractive country — major country — in the world, to invest in. And you can see, again, that our investment pace kind of tracked the EU — well ahead of the U.K. and Japan — but tracked the EU for a long time. And then we took off and went in our own direction. And again, the projections show that we're going to continue to outstrip Europe and the rest of the world in terms of investment growth.
And let's do the scorecard here: Biden, 9.4% average annual investment growth over his term; Trump, 3.9%. So, when Trump says he is the president that brings back investment, brings back jobs, he's wrong. It was the things that were passed in the Biden administration: the Inflation Reduction Act, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, and the CHIPS Act. Three major pieces of legislation that brought investment back.
And that has all made the stock market very happy, as you know. The stock market is roughly up 51% under Biden, up 44% under Trump. And it, again, way outstripped other countries. And so, businesses may say they have concerns about Joe Biden or Kamala Harris, but, in fact, under their administration, they did better as stock market investors than they did under Trump.