Fact check: Did Black wages in the US rise ‘massively’ under Donald Trump?
Al Jazeera
They did rise, but they have risen even faster under Joe Biden. And the US wage gap for Black and white men grew under Donald Trump.
In recent days, US Democrats have fretted about polls showing soft support for Vice President Kamala Harris among Black voters, and especially among Black men — a development that some Democrats fear could imperil Harris’s chances to win in November.
On October 14, Harris released an “Opportunity Agenda for Black Men” that her campaign hoped would win more support.
US Congressman Byron Donalds, an ally of former President Donald Trump, said there’s a reason members of this core Democratic group should vote for Trump instead.
“The big stat — and this happened during the first Trump administration, nobody likes to talk about it: Wages adjusted for inflation were massively up under Donald Trump for Black men, for Black families, [and] for all Americans,” Donalds said on October 13 on the CNN programme State of the Union. “The wage gap that Democrats love to lecture about — the wage gap in 2019 was actually shrinking under Donald Trump’s administration, his economic policies, his energy policies, and his regulatory policies.”
Wages for Black Americans and Black men did rise under Trump, but Donalds ignored that they rose three times faster under Trump’s successor, President Joe Biden, even after adjusting for a period of 40-year-high inflation on Biden’s watch. Rather than narrowing under Trump, the Black-white wage gap widened.
