The NY Times catches on to how the Midwest is falling behind under Trump

Ben Casselman of the New York Times is bringing national attention to an economic trend I've pointed out in recent months - the states that gave Donald Trump the presidency in 2016 have done significantly worse since Trump became president (can't link to story as I do not subscribe to NYT).

The slowdown is particularly striking in the crucial counties in these states that swung from Obama to Trump in 2016. They have lost manufacturing jobs on average in the past year and are barely adding jobs overall. pic.twitter.com/mD2cNMX05p

— Ben Casselman (@bencasselman) December 16, 2019

Now will this cause the places that may have taken a chance on Trump (particular those Obama-to-Trump "swing counties") to flip back toward blue? It obviously depends on whether those people vote based largely on economic performance, or on other issues, and Casselman notes that what people think the economy is doing has a lot to do with what party the voter supports.

More in my story today, with gorgeous maps and charts from @KarlNYT https://t.co/yXX9uz58ON

— Ben Casselman (@bencasselman) December 16, 2019

The Midwest's lagging has become especially noticeable in the last year, as the most recent "gold standard" Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW) showed. Between June 2018 and June 2019, the five states Casselman outlines along with Iowa ranged from middle-of-the-pack (and far behind the US rate), to bottom 10 of all the states.

Job growth, QCEW June 2018-June 2019
All jobs
U.S. +1.13%
Penn +0.77% (25th)
Minn +0.76% (26th)
Ohio +0.42% (36th)
Wis. +0.32% (41st)
Mich +0.14% (43rd)
Iowa +0.11% (44th)

Private sector jobs
U.S. +1.25%
Penn +0.87% (24th)
Minn +0.61% (31st)
Wis. +0.40% (39th)
Ohio +0.33% (42nd)
Mich +0.06% (45th)
Iowa +0.05% (46th)

And so when the US media tries to claim "Trump will benefit from a booming economy in 2020", not only is it not true that the economy is booming (job growth and income growth has slowed over the last 18 months), but the Midwestern states that Trump needs to retain are the ones that are seeing little to no growth at all.

The Midwest trailing the rest of the nation looks a lot like the last time the country was riding the tail end of a Bubbly economy under a Republican president - the Bush presidency circa 2006-2007. What followed was even worse, and Republicans were blasted out of all areas of power by the end of 2008.