I would like to see an increase in median income adjusted by CPI.
I could imagine the stock Market going gangbusters due to the fact that companies have found new and different methods to make their fewer employees work harder for less. Also the Dow reaching 30,000 isn’t quite such a big deal if all prices have gone up 50%.
How about the Human Development Index used by the UN? It can be tracked each year. It is very comprehensive on every metric you could imagine for measuring a nation. Additionally, the measurements are fairly non-subjective.
I’d rate it a success if:
The trick is to start with low expectations.
None of these economic measures are valid. In general, anything the government takes a long time to impact the economy, so some of what’s the result of one administration’s policies takes place during the next administration. In addition, there are other government actors with a lot of power, most notably congress and the Federal reserve. Plus, there are worldwide factors, including the impact of what’s going on in other countries. All that in addition to the natural economic cycle, which nobody has ever been able to solve.
In addition to the above, a lot of the indicators can be either good or bad, and it’s not always clear which it is. If the stock or housing markets are up strongly, is that good (reflecting a strong underlying economy) or bad (reflecting a bubble)? The current artificial low-interest rate climate is pushing up the value of stocks (and bonds), and if the economy recovers and interest rates rise, then this will depress valuations. Is that bad or good? And so on.
And further, one way to juice things up in the relatively short term is to run big government deficits. So if a guy runs huge deficits and keeps a lot of these measures high, but leaves it for the next generation to pay for it, is that a success and he a good president? (The current low interest rate climate has kept the interest payments on the debt relatively pain free, but this could change in a hurry if rates go up, and the public could wake up to the need for austerity - is this the fault of Obama or the next guy?)
In sum, the notion that there’s any sort of way of definitively deciding based on these types of numbers whether a particular administration is a success or not is very very flawed.
Number of human breeding pairs left to repopulate the planet.
Then by what criteria, if any, could an administration be judged a success or failure?
One criteria that hasn’t been listed explicitly, and is of interest to me, is government debt / deficits. Frankly, I don’t anticipate Trump doing well in this area, given his proposals, but maybe he’ll surprise me. I don’t have the exact figures handy, but Bush took the national debt from roughly $5T to $10T and Obama took it from roughly $10T to $20T. If Trump can bend that curve down some, I’d call it a win. If it stays on the same trajectory or gets worse, that’s a loss.
I don’t think there are any objective numerical criteria that can be used. You have to keep arguing about it forever. Which is generally what happens, anyway.
Okay, well… thank you.
The OP raised this topic in another thread. I’ll quote the response I made there:
Let’s go by the things Trump promised to do during his campaign. Regardless of whether we agree or disagree, we have to acknowledge his effectiveness as a political leader if he gets his agenda enacted into law.
Job creation: The unemployment rate was 4.9% in October 2016. Trump can claim credit for creating jobs if it’s lower in October 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020.
Illegal immigrants: There’s approximately 11,500,000 illegal immigrants in the United States. Trump gets credit if he reduces that number. We can check back on that once per year.
Tax plan: Trump wants to institute new income tax rates. He wants to create a three-rate plan where everyone will pay either twelve, twenty-five, or thirty-three percent. He wants to eliminate the head of household category and raise the standard deduction for married couples and singles. We’ll call this one a success if it’s enacted within two years.
The deficit curve is already bent down. According to the numbers I’ve found, the federal budget deficit was about $1.4 trillion in 2009, and down to about $450 billion in 2014. Still not not balanced, but going in the right direction. The deficit rose to about $600 billion in 2016 (not sure if those are final figures or projections), and projected to be roughly steady for the next five years. Those are deficit figures, not debt, and I’m not sure if they’re adjusted for inflation, but it does show me that we have gotten closer to a balanced budget over the last few years. I’d like to see us continue that progress, and Trump will have his work cut out for him to do so. If he does, good for him, but I wouldn’t call it a huge turnaround, either.
Also, your numbers for Obama are slightly exaggerated. The debt was $10.6 trillion when he took office, it’s $18 trillion now.
I wouldn’t call it a success just if Trump gets his tax plan passed, but whether it meets the projections made for it. If the past is anything to go by, he’ll sell it by saying it will create jobs, and that economic boost will more than make up any lost revenue. If he can pull off both of those tricks, then we’ll talk.
Now that Trump is in office, I would like to track his performance based on objective data. For example, as of today, January 20, 2017:
What are some other objective measures we can watch thru his presidency that would indicate how well he is doing?
The unemployment rate is not objective because it conveniently ignores millions who have given up looking for work.
I would propose in addition to those the following measures from the Human Development Index using by the UN.
http://hdr.undp.org/en/countries/profiles/USA
Health measures:
Infants lacking immunization, DTP (% of one-year-olds) 2
Infants lacking immunization, measles (% of one-year-olds) 9
Inequality measures:
Inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI) 0.76
Coefficient of human inequality 15.7
Income inequality, Gini coefficient 41.1
Income inequality, Palma ratio 2
Income inequality, Quintile ratio 9.8
Inequality in education (%) 5.3
Inequality in income (%) 35.6
Inequality in life expectancy (%) 6.2
Inequality-adjusted education index 0.842
Inequality-adjusted income index 0.61
Inequality-adjusted life expectancy index 0.853
Gender measures:
Gender Inequality Index (GII) 0.28
Human Security:
Homicide rate (per 100,000 people) 4.7
Birth registration (% under age five) 100
Old age pension recipients (% of statutory pension age population) 92.5
Prison population (per 100,000 people) 716
Suicide rate, female (per 100,000 people) 5.2
Suicide rate, male (per 100,000 people) 19.4
Environmental Sustainability:
Carbon dioxide emissions per capita (tonnes) 17
Electrification rate, rural (% of rural population) 100
Forest area (% of total land area) 33.3
Fresh water withdrawals (% of total renewable water resources) 15.5
Impact of natural disasters, population affected (average annual per million people) 5,073.9
Natural resource depletion (% of GNI) 1
Population living on degraded land (%) 1.1
Primary energy supply, fossil fuels (% of total) 83.6
Does that really matter as long as the same statistic is used during this administration?
The President hasn’t controlled the price of gold since 1971.
That’s the way it’s always been calculated.
Tell me where will the jobs come from for those millions? Any ideas?
Building that big wall at the border?
Surely, factory jobs will come flooding back! He PROMISED. Trumpet-eers will feel mighty foolish standing there with their dicks in their hands in 4 years if those factory jobs don’t come flooding back.
Pizza Hut is hiring, I’ve heard, thousands of jobs!
As others have said, as long as the statistic is consistent, it is a fair and objective measure.
How about we include:
This may be a good thing to track with Trump, as many of his campaign promises are around bringing jobs back to working class people who may make-up a large part of this figure. I would expect this to rise by the mid-terms.
How many US Presidents have personally affected crude oil prices?
NONE!