[00:00:00.17] – Speaker 1
This is Earl Ofari Hutchinson with another edition of the Hutchinson Report. The question the truth about blacks and black voters under Trump. In this edition of the Hutchinson Report, we’re going to look at the truth and lie about black prosperity under Donald Trump. The Donald Trump campaign continually says, and Trump blacks were better off economically, financially and prosperity. Under my administration, the economy was booming.
[00:00:32.14] – Speaker 1
You had the lowest unemployment rate among African Americans since slavery since recorded numbers were done a half a century ago. That is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In addition to that, income levels went up dramatically under African Americans. There’s truth in that. Unemployment during the Trump years, from 2016 to 2020, during his administration, unemployment did drop to record low levels among African Americans.
[00:01:02.22] – Speaker 1
Across the board, it is true, income rose to record high levels among African Americans during the Trump years. So when you look at the simple numbers, more blocks blacks had jobs, more black income went up, and black mobility in terms of rising up in terms of business and the professions, that was up. There’s truth there. So the Trump people and the Trump campaign and Donald Trump, they are not lying when they say that. They are not exaggerating when they say that there was an element of prosperity, well being and income that is rise, that is being the drop in poverty.
[00:01:44.23] – Speaker 1
The poverty rate did drop among African Americans to the lowest level. There’s truth there. And so when there’s truth, we have to say that where’s the lie? The lie that Trump did that, it was his policy, his administration’s policies that did that. That’s a lie.
[00:02:03.03] – Speaker 1
Capitalism in the business cycle goes in cycles, up, down, recession and prosperity, growth and retraction. That is capitalism. And that’s what happened during that period. The recovery actually began. And we had been in a very, very tough economic situation for several years.
[00:02:26.01] – Speaker 1
When then former president Barack Obama took over in 2008, the economy was collapsing. It took time to recover, but the cycle came back around again. And there was economic recovery. It began during the administration from 2012 to 2016, 2nd term of then President Barack Obama. So the cycle turned back around.
[00:02:50.06] – Speaker 1
Business expansion, business growth, investment, job creation, all the things that go into determining what is the health of an economy. So that was all there. But the foundation for what Trump took credit for actually happened two years or began two years before he took office in 2016. So the Trump administration, prosperity that lifted blacks up actually was created, or at least the foundation for that came during the Obama administration. So it’s a lie that Trump created all of this prosperity based on his programs, based on his policies and based on his administration.
[00:03:33.27] – Speaker 1
That’s a falsehood that’s a fallacy. It’s not true yet. In spill, we know this. The president that comes in after hard times and when there is an upswing in, in the economy, they get the credit for it, not the president that created it, at least during his administration. So there was truth there in what Trump said, but there’s a lie in him taking full credit for it.
[00:03:56.16] – Speaker 1
We’re going to hear more of that continually during this campaign. The 2024 presidential campaign is going to appeal to blacks already interviews all over the place with many blacks saying how much better they were under Trump. But then others can see through it and know that that is not necessarily the case. And even there, the income, the poverty, all of the race that supposedly went up, they were uneven. More certain types of blacks that were in better position, that is the middle class, they did much better.
[00:04:28.25] – Speaker 1
And some elements of the working class. So when you’re looking at were blacks better off under Donald Trump? The answer is yes. But the caveat and the asterisk was it was created that prosperity, such as it was, that happened during the Barack Obama Obama administration. So credit Obama, even though he gets no credit, not Donald Trump for that.
[00:04:54.19] – Speaker 1
The second thing is the lie part. He did not create that. That’s a fallacy. We’re blacks better under Donald Trump. There’s fact, there’s fiction, there’s truth, and there’s a lie.
[00:05:07.13] – Speaker 1
You’ve’ been watching and listening to the Hutchinson Report with Earl Ofari. Hutchinson.