It’s official: The economy last year grew at its slowest pace of President Trump’s term so far, expanding by 2.3 percent, well below the clip the president pledged to deliver. The report from Trump’s own Commerce Department also challenges a claim the president has already made a staple of his reelection pitch: that the economy he is presiding over is “the best it has ever been,” and enjoying a “boom the likes of which the world has never seen before.” To the contrary, the economic expansion is merely maintaining its pace from President Barack Obama’s second term — and tracking below its rates during the Carter, Reagan and Clinton administrations:
In the last quarter of 2019, growth clocked in at 2.1 percent, just above a rate Trump said indicated the economy was “in deep trouble” back in 2012: