THREAD: A few slides on the current state of the economy. Let's start with cumulative job creation as of month X of presidency, where Trump was in 3rd place of the last 7 presidents pre-coronavirus, but now is in last place. 1/

Coronavirus has erased 5 years of job gains, with the number of persons with jobs back to March 2015 levels. We're about 5 million jobs below the level inherited from Obama in January 2017, and 11.5 million below February 2020 peak. 2/

When analyzing job creation, note that job creation was about 20% faster in Obama's last 3 years (2014-2016) than Trump's first 3 (2017-2019). 3/

Trump and his team have falsely claimed that he turned around a stagnant economy. Real GDP growth was in fact nearly the same under both Presidents, comparing Obama's last 3 years and Trump's first 3. 4/

CBO provided some helpful insight here, explaining in January 2017 that if Obama policies continued, the U.S. would achieve full employment ("eliminate slack") in the next two years. 5/

Trump often talks about stock market performance. Pre-coronavirus compared against other Presidents, Trump was behind Clinton and Obama. He remained behind Obama as of August 31, 2020 as well. 6/

Real wage growth (adjusting for inflation) was faster in Obama's last 3 years vs. Trump's first 3 years. While nominal wage growth picked up, so did inflation. 7/

While the budget deficit wasn't in the news as it was in the Obama era, it's been far higher than CBO forecast it would be just prior to Trump's inauguration, as much as 60% in 2018 and 2019, with 2020 in a different league altogether. This is due to tax cuts and spending. 8/

Coronavirus deaths per million (rolling 7-day average ending Sept 6th) indicate the U.S. second worst behind Brazil among major countries. A recovery will be difficult while the pandemic is so lethal in the U.S. 9/

So here we are in August 2020, with most variables well below the level Trump inherited from Obama in January 2017. The gap is much more pronounced relative to the pre-crisis peak in February 2020. 10/