Comparing economic performance for Black Americans under Trump, Biden

As they face off in this year’s election, both President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have aggressively courted Black Americans’ votes. 

Historically, Black voters have overwhelmingly backed Democrats, but polling so far this year shows some openness among Black voters, especially Black men, to support Trump. In May, the Pew Research Center reported that, at least this early in the presidential race, Biden has a 77%-18% edge over Trump among Black voters, which is lower than it was for Biden in 2020 (92%-8%) or for fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016 (91%-6%).

Both Trump and Biden have made pitches about Black economic success on their watches, sometimes with mixed levels of accuracy.

Trump said his administration "achieved the lowest African American unemployment rate and the lowest African American poverty rate ever recorded." Both metrics did reach record lows under Trump, but then went on to surpass those record lows under Biden. So we rated this Trump claim Half True.

Biden got a Half True rating for saying, "The racial wealth gap is the smallest it’s been in 20 years." Economists use two measures to assess the racial wealth gap, and Biden’s statement covered only one of them. 

With 2024’s first presidential debate set for June 27 in Atlanta, a region with a large and politically pivotal Black population, race and the economy could be discussed. So, we absorbed a wide array of economic statistics about how Black Americans have fared under Trump and Biden and present them here.

Although the coronavirus pandemic skewed some economic statistics, we generally found that Black Americans fared well by historical standards during Donald Trump’s presidency. Still, they have fared even better under President Joe Biden.

"Setting aside the severe shock caused by the Covid pandemic, the absolute and relative economic status of African Americans improved under both presidents," said Gary Burtless, an economist with the Brookings Institution, a Washington, D.C. think tank. "Nonetheless, looking closely at most of the economic indicators, I think we’d have to give the nod to economic progress achieved during the Biden years. The latest numbers suggest that the relative wage gains of workers in the lower ranks of the earnings distribution, including African Americans, have persisted up through the present."

Particularly for such metrics as inflation-adjusted household income, business startups and health insurance coverage, "Black Americans fared better under Biden relative to Trump," said Gregory N. Price, an economics professor at the University of New Orleans.

However, persistent gaps separating whites and Blacks remain, and by most metrics, neither Trump nor Biden has closed them significantly.  

A reminder: No president is all-powerful in shaping economic outcomes. This applies equally to both Trump and Biden.

Here’s our rundown of several key economic metrics.

The unemployment rate

Setting aside the coronavirus pandemic’s swift, severe disruptions, both Trump and Biden had relatively low Black unemployment rates during their presidencies. But the rates under Biden have been lower. 

Not only did this metric return to 6.5%, its approximate prepandemic level, under Biden in November 2021, but it went on to hit a record low 4.8% in April 2023. Not counting the peak pandemic period of April 2020 to October 2021, Black unemployment has averaged 5.86% under Biden, which is lower than the 6.65% level under Trump.

How quickly Black unemployment has improved has been impressive, said Tara Sinclair, a George Washington University economist who recently completed a stint as deputy assistant secretary for macroeconomics in the Treasury Department’s Office of Economic Policy. 

The Black unemployment rate peaked at similar levels in 2010, during the Great Recession, and in 2020, during the pandemic recession. But after the Great Recession, it took more than nine years to get the rate sustainably below 6.5%, compared with less than two years after the pandemic recession peak.

The gap in unemployment rate between Black Americans and white Americans persists. Once again excluding the peak pandemic period of April 2020 to October 2021, the average difference between Black and white unemployment rates was 3.16 percentage points under Trump and 3.29 percentage points under Biden.

Labor force participation rate

The labor force participation rate measures what share of the population is employed or looking for work. A higher rate is economically desirable, because more workers produce more goods or services and can spend the money they earn elsewhere in the economy.

For Black Americans, labor force participation hovered between 62% and 63% before the pandemic under Trump. After returning to nearly 62% under Biden in January 2022, the metric has continued to rise. Since September 2023, it has risen as high as 63.7% in two months and hasn’t fallen below 62.9%. 

Black labor force participation was hit harder during the pandemic than white labor force participation. But by early February 2022, Black labor force participation caught up with white labor force participation and has kept rising. Today, it stands 0.7 percentage points higher than for whites.

This is historically unusual, Sinclair said. From the mid-1970s to 2021, the white labor force participation rate almost always exceeded the Black labor force participation rate. For most of Biden’s tenure, the opposite has been true.

Wages and income

The single biggest challenge economically for Biden has been inflation, which hit 40-year highs of about 9% in summer 2022 before falling to around 3% within a year.

Despite this, wage growth has been healthy for Black Americans — and more so under Biden than under Trump.

After adjusting for inflation, weekly earnings for full-time Black workers under Trump averaged $280.80 before the pandemic. Despite higher inflation, take-home pay for Black workers starting in 2022’s first quarter has averaged $299.90, a level almost 7% higher under Biden.

Black earnings have continued to trail white earnings by fairly consistent margins.

Another metric, inflation-adjusted household income, shows a similar story. Black household incomes rose under Trump but have continued rising — slightly — under Biden.

Neither Trump nor Biden presided over any significant narrowing of the five-decade household income gap between Black and white households.

Poverty

Poverty data is released only once a year, and the last year available is 2022. That data shows the Black poverty rate has been lower under Biden than it was under Trump.

The lowest annual rate under Trump came in 2019, when it was 18.8%. Under Biden, it fell to 17.1% in 2022.

Black-owned businesses

The number of Black-owned businesses began rising under Trump, but it has kept rising under Biden, according to Census Bureau data. 

Another metric, the Federal Reserve’s Survey of Consumer Finances, conducted every three years, tracks with what the Census Bureau found. The 2022 Fed survey, the first conducted since 2019, found that 11% of Black households held equity in a business, far higher than the previous record of 6.6% in 2016 and the 4.8% recorded in 2019.

And a study by the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research found that the share of Black workers who are self-employed increased by 50% from 2019 to 2023.

Homeownership

Excluding the pandemic, Black homeownership rates averaged 42.2% under Trump and 45.4% under Biden. 

Still, Black Americans continue to have the lowest rates of homeownership among U.S. ethnic groups, with little progress made under either president. We rated Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., True when he said that "For African American families in particular, the homeownership rate remains relatively unchanged since 1968, the year the Fair Housing Act was signed into law."

Health insurance coverage

After Democratic-led passage of the Affordable Care Act, which included health insurance marketplaces and federal premium subsidies, the share of Black Americans without health insurance declined in 2014 and continued to fall through 2016, Barack Obama’s last year in office.

Under Trump’s first three years in office, the Black uninsured rate rose again. (Data for the pandemic year of 2020 is unavailable.) But once Biden took office, the Black uninsured rate began falling again, hitting a record low in 2022 of 10%.

The gap in uninsurance between Black and white Americans has narrowed under Biden. At the Trump’s presidency’s onset, the gap was 3.8 percentage points. In 2022 under Biden, it was 3.4 percentage points.