Does President Trump deserve credit for the jobs created in February?

Does President Trump deserve credit for the job numbers from February? The answer is somewhere between no and maybe a little.

As the two articles below demonstrate, we are now at 76 consecutive months of job growth. President Trump was around for only one month of that. President Obama was there the other 75 (or six years and three months). So looking at that metric, the answer is more in the firm no camp.

However, to be fair, job growth, thanks to some misguided enthusiasm for proposed policies in tax reduction and deregulation may have fueled some higher hiring trends. There is no hard data to prove this point but there have been some examples in History. Enthusiasm for the Clinton Presidency in 1992/93 may have helped accelerate an already recovering American Economy. There was similar sentiment when Barrack Obama became President in the middle of the Great Recession. If you go by that feeling (and it is just a feeling), the Trump Presidency may have had some early effect. However, it is probably just a build up on economic conditions from the previous months and years.

Most Economic Numbers can be traced to the effects of pronouncements and policies of an Administration after at least the first six months to a year. We may not be there yet to measure what impact, if any, the Trump Administration has had in the economy.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/business/economy/february-unemployment-jobs-report.html?_r=1

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/10/upshot/should-trump-get-credit-for-good-jobs-numbers.html?smid=fb-share