Special Poll
Billionaire investor and television personality Mark Cuban recently defended President Biden’s handling of the economy while criticizing former President Trump. Cuban argued that Trump squandered the strong economy he inherited from President Obama.
Using the social platform X, Cuban highlighted a graph depicting 12 consecutive months of positive real wage growth in the U.S. Responding to a user who seemed unimpressed by these figures, Cuban stated, “Imagine looking at this graphic and not realizing that your guy underperformed the Obama economy he inherited and gave away all the wage growth trends in place when he took office,” referring to Trump.
The graph Cuban referenced illustrated the year-over-year change in real average hourly earnings dating back before 2010, covering much of the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations.
A user argued that Cuban was disregarding the fact that there was no negative wage growth under Trump. “You can’t brag about Biden’s ‘wage growth’ because the line is positive and then ignore the lack of negative wage growth in the Trump administration,” they said.
According to the graph, before the 12 months of positive real wage growth (where wages outpaced inflation) under Biden, there were 25 months of negative real wage growth under his administration.
Cuban, a star of the TV show “Shark Tank,” responded by pointing out that both Obama and Biden inherited significant economic crises and managed to reverse negative wage growth, whereas Trump presided over a period of diminishing wage growth. “I just showed the graphic. Without commentary,” Cuban said. “The facts are that Obama and Biden inherited the Great Recession and Covid, both generational issues, and turned the economy positive over time.”
He added, “The guy between them inherited a booming economy and in terms of wage growth, diminished it. Is that what the numbers say to you?”
As Biden prepares to face off against Trump once again in the upcoming election, he has struggled to change Americans’ largely negative perceptions of the economy. According to a recent Harris poll, nearly 60% of Americans believe the U.S. is in a recession, despite experts asserting that there hasn’t been one since 2020.
While inflation rose rapidly in 2021 and 2022, peaking at a 40-year high of 9.1 percent, it has significantly eased since then. As of April, consumer prices were up just 3.4 percent year over year.
Despite the Federal Reserve’s repeated interest rate hikes to control inflation, the labor market has remained robust, consistently exceeding expectations with unemployment staying below 4 percent for the longest stretch in 50 years.