In the interests of objectivity and the scientific method, I suggest the following: come up with a list of metrics by which you will evaluate Trump’s presidency in 4 years. Rules:
a) Be fair: we all know Trump will most probably appoint a conservative Justice. It’s not fair to judge an entire presidency by one such action.
b) Make sure your criteria are sufficient to judge a presidency: if, upon finding out that Trump has done more or less well with respect to the criteria you have set, you cannot go looking for new criteria by which he has not done well and vice-versa – unless…
c) Trump does something objectively horrible that you hadn’t accounted for in your criteria – e.g. he deports all Muslims or turns out to be literally the Antichrist.
It turns out creating such a list of criteria is heavy work. First, it's difficult enough identifying metrics that provide a reasonably complete view of a country's performance. Second, it's not always easy to find data. Third, setting a target is a bit arbitrary.
So, this task being harder than I thought, and myself feeling lazy, I haven't put in this as much work as I should. Nevertheless, I have put together a few metrics that I think are okayish. In terms of targets, for the most parts I've benchmaked Trump vs Obama. In those areas where Obama has done well, I've set Trump's target to match Obama's performance. In those areas Obama has not done well, I've set Trump's target to either maintain the status quo, or if he has claimed that he will bring back the good old days etc, I've set his target to, say, 2012 levels.
In some specific cases, I've set sort of unfair targets for Trump, but he's had it coming. So, for example, it's not sufficient for him to reduce the crime rate in the USA, because that's already been happening; but since Republicans have been complaining that people feel less safe, he has to convince the population that they are safer.
Anyway, here we go:
Economy
a) Be fair: we all know Trump will most probably appoint a conservative Justice. It’s not fair to judge an entire presidency by one such action.
b) Make sure your criteria are sufficient to judge a presidency: if, upon finding out that Trump has done more or less well with respect to the criteria you have set, you cannot go looking for new criteria by which he has not done well and vice-versa – unless…
c) Trump does something objectively horrible that you hadn’t accounted for in your criteria – e.g. he deports all Muslims or turns out to be literally the Antichrist.
It turns out creating such a list of criteria is heavy work. First, it's difficult enough identifying metrics that provide a reasonably complete view of a country's performance. Second, it's not always easy to find data. Third, setting a target is a bit arbitrary.
So, this task being harder than I thought, and myself feeling lazy, I haven't put in this as much work as I should. Nevertheless, I have put together a few metrics that I think are okayish. In terms of targets, for the most parts I've benchmaked Trump vs Obama. In those areas where Obama has done well, I've set Trump's target to match Obama's performance. In those areas Obama has not done well, I've set Trump's target to either maintain the status quo, or if he has claimed that he will bring back the good old days etc, I've set his target to, say, 2012 levels.
In some specific cases, I've set sort of unfair targets for Trump, but he's had it coming. So, for example, it's not sufficient for him to reduce the crime rate in the USA, because that's already been happening; but since Republicans have been complaining that people feel less safe, he has to convince the population that they are safer.
Anyway, here we go:
Economy
- GDP CAGR of 2%, with 4% in his final year. Source: World Bank
- Debt no higher than today ($19.9 trillion). Source: US Treasury
- Unemployment rate at 4% (vs 4.8% today). Source: US Bureau of Labour
- Labour Force participation at pre-crisis level, i.e. 66% (vs 63% today). Source: As above.
- Bottom 10th percentile of households income growth. Note: the bottom 10% of households earns less now than in 2009, whereas the top 10% earns about 7% more. Source: Census Bureau
Race & Gender Equality
- Female income % male income at 83% vs 79.6% (maintain past 4Y CAGR). Source: Pay Equity
- Black household income % white income at 61.4%, flat vs today. Note: black households earn less as a % of white households than they did in 2009. Source: Census Bureau (link above).
- % of blacks with >=4 years highschool = % of whites. Source: Census Bureau
- % of blacks with >=4 years college at 24.5% (+2% vs today). Source: as above
- Blacks' trust in the police at 2012 level, i.e. 36% vs 30% today. Source: Gallup
Crime
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