The net worth of Americans has risen to its highest number in decades thanks to Donald Trump’s economic and tax policies, a report notes. According to Market Watch, household and nonprofit net worth rose by $2.19 trillion in the second quarter this year.
That represents a seasonally adjusted annual rise of 2.1% to $106.93 trillion, driven in part by gains in the stock market as well as in the value of real estate.
As the economic cycle grows older — and as the real estate sector bemoans a lack of available homes that has driven up house prices — household net worth continues to gain.
Going along with this news, the stock market hit another high this week.
As the Wall Street Journal reported:
The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P 500 set new highs Thursday, kindling hopes among some investors that buoyant U.S. stocks are on track to exceed Wall Street’s performance expectations for 2018.
The blue chips surged more than 250 points to cap a three-day run of gains, the latest leg of a nine-year rally that hurtled the index to its first record close since Jan. 26. The stock market’s rise has coincided with a pause in the U.S. dollar’s climb and a recent spike in government-bond yields, a signal that investors are viewing next week’s expected increase in interest rates from the Federal Reserve as a testament to the strength of the economy.
Thursday’s rally pushed the Dow up 7.8% for the year, while the S&P 500, which also set a new record, has added 9.6%—putting it within striking distance of the 2018 price targets of banks such as Goldman Sachs and Bank of America Merrill Lynch.
This not only never happened under Barack Obama, but as Stephen Moore wrote this week, “This economy is definitely not Obama’s recovery.”
Barack Obama has been trying to take credit for the booming economy under President Trump. “When you hear how great the economy is doing right now,” Obama said on the campaign trail for Democratic candidates a few days ago, “let’s just remember when this recovery started.”
But the contrast in economic performance between the two presidents is undeniable. Obama’s multitrillion-dollar spend-and-borrow policies produced 2 percent growth. In his final year, Obama handed off to Trump an economy that was limping at 1.6 percent.
After only 18 months in office, Trump has elevated growth to 3 percent on an annual rate and the latest projections are that the growth rate for the second and third quarter (which ends Sept. 30) will be over 4 percent.
- Warner Todd Huston
How to be a millionaire: Tips from the Dave Ramsey show
