Trump delivered economic promises and lifted living standards - Yorkshire Post Letters

In your issue of May 9 you featured an article by Andy Brown, the Green Party councillor for Airedale, on climate change, but in which he also took a sideswipe at Donald Trump.

"It is ... not easy to explain the actions of Donald Trump if you accept his assertion that he is only interested in putting America First," he wrote.

"They make a lot more sense if you assume that what he is really interested in is putting himself first."

Mr Brown cites no supporting evidence for this viewpoint.

In fact, Mr Trump is probably the only President in American history who has ended his term poorer than he began it, having refused to take his presidential salary.

And during his time he did what he promised economically, raising the living standards of ordinary working people.

According to official figures, in his first three years, before Covid, real wage growth for the bottom 10 per cent of the population, at 9.8 per cent was more than double the real wage growth of the top ten per cent, which was 4.8 per cent.

In the same period, real wealth for the bottom 50 per cent of the population rose 28.4 per cent, while that of the top one per cent rose 8.9 per cent. The bottom 50 percent’s share of real wealth rose, while that of the top one per cent declined.

In 2019 real median household income in America rose by more $4,400, more than in any of the 16 years to 2016.

These figures are rarely publicised, but they give the lie to Councillor Brown's careless assertion.

He was right to warn us against the perils of doublethink, but he would be wise to look to himself first.