Very few official reports are available to show the impact of Trump’s economic policies on poverty. The annual homeless assessment report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (DHUD) is about the only one. Homelessness is one of four areas of economic decline we will evaluate here to complete our assessment of the 14 areas of the US economy now tracking poorly. We will then move on to the remaining areas of the economy which are performing at or close to the worst in the world. All will provide links to the raw data.
That will complete our assessment of the 26 key economic indicators.
Disturbing rise in homelessness
After six straight years of US homeless numbers declining, there was a slight uptick in Trump’s first year, 2017. Just over a thousand more people sleeping rough. In his second year, the increase was closer to two thousand. Then, in 2019, after three Trump budgets, tax cuts for the rich and the disastrous trade wars, the homeless community increased by almost 15,000.
The DHUD’s 2019 report, which provided the graph, above, makes depressing reading:
“Between 2018 and 2019, individuals experiencing homelessness increased by six percent (23,628 more people). The number of unsheltered individuals increased by more than 10 percent (18,437 people) between 2018 and 2019.”
Increasing poverty has made life much more difficult for retailers and wholesalers.
Retail trade receding
The retail sector is paying perhaps the highest price for Trump’s failed economic policies, with the possible exception of farmers. Hundreds of retailers have gone bankrupt since his election, with new foreclosures announced each month. The total loss of retail jobs since Trump’s inauguration in January 2017 now totals 261,000.
This is not explained by online shopping. Several of the bankruptcies have been online retailers, along with bricks and mortar shops.
Industrial production in dire downturn
The February numbers for total US industrial production showed zero dollar increase over the last twelve months. This marked six straight months of zero or negative growth. This has not happened since 2016. It is the opposite of what has been promised over the last three years.
Workers employed in mining declined by 36,800 between January this year and January last year. Over the same period durable goods manufacturing lost 6,000 workers, textile mills lost 4,900, clothing manufacturers lost 8,000 and the printing industry lost 9,500 employees.
Trump tourism downturn
Total revenue from inbound travel and tourism to the USA in calendar 2018 was $256.1 billion. That was a slender rise over the year before in dollars, but a fall in real terms after adjusting for inflation.
In 2019 this fell in dollars by 0.7 per cent to $254.2 billion, which means a fall of about three per cent in real terms.
This at a time of robust global tourism. Tourist revenue increased strongly in 2019 in Canada, Mexico, Great Britain, France and most other popular tourist destination countries.
This downturn over the last two years appears to be by virtue of the US losing its favoured destination appeal rather than any direct economic barrier.
The dismal analysis continues
It is important to note that all the indicators analysed in this series deteriorated well before the coronavirus began to impact the economy. So grim though things are now, further decline is almost certain.
We shall continue this series shortly by examining the data on the eight areas of the economy which are now tracking disastrously. This series, so far, consists of part one, part two, part three and this article, which is part four.
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