Trump’s Tax Cuts Have Failed To Deliver On Their Promises
Trump’s tax cuts and tariffs have been the pillars of his administration’s economic policy and rhetoric around the economy. We’ve addressed the tariffs earlier, so now we’ll take a closer look into the tax cuts. Taking effect in January of this year, they were promoted as beneficial to long-term economic growth by strengthening the labor market and increasing business investment. Almost a full year into the plan, however, the results have been underwhelming. Each of those mechanisms for boosting growth has fallen flat, while the tax cuts instead have significantly increased the budget deficit and sent interest rates surging.
First, how have the tax cuts affected the labor market? While Trump often touts a record-low unemployment rate, much of that progress was made pre-2018, so it is helpful to look at the change in the trajectory of the labor market since the tax cuts went into effect in January 2018. Since then, the unemployment rate has fallen by an annualized 0.5 percentage points (pp), compared to a decline of 0.6pp in 2017 and an average decline of 0.5pp in 2015-16. Very normal looking. But the unemployment rate doesn’t tell the full story – it can fall based upon people becoming discouraged and leaving the labor force rather than getting jobs, so it’s helpful to also look at prime age labor force participation. Here the case for a tax cut-driven labor market boost looks very poor. Since December 2017, labor force participation has actually fallen by 0.1pp, compared to gains of 0.5pp in 2017 and 0.4pp in 2016. Both unemployment and labor force participation are included in the prime age employment-to-population ratio, making that metric a good barometer for the health of the labor market as a whole. Since December 2017, it has increased by 0.3pp, a much slower growth rate than gains of 1pp in 2017 and 0.7pp in 2016. On Trump’s promise of a higher trajectory for the labor market then, what has been the result? Rather than seeing a surge in job growth, the labor market actually appears to be on a lower growth trend in 2018, even in the midst of the tax cut’s $202 billion fiscal stimulus to the economy this year alone.
Second, how has business investment changed since the tax cut was enacted? Since then, real non-residential fixed investment has increased by a quarterly average of 7% (annualized), only slightly larger than the 6.3% quarterly average increase in 2017. For manufacturers, meanwhile, orders of capital goods have increased 5.5% this year (annualized), much less than the 10.5% growth seen in 2017. So investment growth this year seems to be rather similar to what it was in 2017, a significant blow to Trump’s claims that the tax cut would supercharge investment spending. Taking the non-residential investment number, the dollar value gain from increasing investment growth from 6.3% (in 2017) to 7% (in 2018) is $18.1 billion. Compared to a loss of revenue of $202 billion into the Treasury in 2018 alone, this means that for every $100 in tax cuts, only $9 in new investment spending was created. Even this simple analysis overstates the tax cut’s impact on investment. This impact is very front-loaded (because firms will invest now if they think there will be more demand in the future), so it’s likely that investment growth will slow down now from its already moderate level. Indeed, non-residential investment grew at an annualized rate of only 0.8% in the 3rd quarter of this year, and manufacturer’s orders of capital goods have actually declined for two straight months since July.
So the tax cut has done little to spur the boosts to the labor market and investment spending that Trump argued would lead to stronger long term growth. It is no wonder then that the Congressional Budget Office projects less than stellar growth effects from the tax cut. While it is true that the tax cut will increase growth this year and next, they estimate that it will actually reduce growth each year from 2022 to 2027 (the last year studied). Overall, they estimate that the tax cut will increase real GDP by 0.7% by 2027, equal to about $180 billion out of an estimated GDP of $25 trillion, compared to an increase of $1.8 trillion to the federal debt. As a result, for every $10 of tax cuts, only $1 of new growth will be created, for a multiplier of only 10%. By contrast, economists estimate that the multiplier for infrastructure spending is much higher (with some showing it closer to 80%).
While its benefits to growth, jobs, and investment have been minimal, the costs of the tax cut to the economy are large and will heavily weigh down future prosperity. First, the tax cut has blown a hole into the federal budget. While Trump and Mnuchin have repeatedly said that the tax cut will pay for itself, corporate tax revenue fell $91 billion in 2018 and overall revenue was $202 billion less than the CBO’s pre-tax cut projection. As a result, the entire $113 billion increase in the federal deficit from 2017 to 2018 could have been wiped out if the tax cut hadn’t reduced revenues so significantly. The rapidly rising deficit has made it very challenging to manage the next recession, of which JP Morgan projects there is a 60% chance within the next two years. By 2020, the federal deficit will be 4.6% of GDP (compared to 1.1% in 2007 on the eve of the Great Recession), meaning that there will be little room for fiscal stimulus to boost a recovery.
Second, the tax cut has played an important role in raising interest rates throughout the economy. While the Fed clearly has a significant effect on rates, the tax cuts increased the supply of US government debt (by increasing deficits), causing yields on that debt to increase. Furthermore, the increase in stock prices as a result of increasing corporate profits made bonds less attractive to investors, also causing an increase in yields. As a result, since January, yields on the 10-yr treasury have increased from 2.4% to 3.1%, while the interest rate on an average 30-yr fixed rate mortgage has increased from 4% to 4.9%. This increase in rates will have a major negative effect on the US economy. First, rising rates have been part of the reason why the US stock market has performed so poorly over the last month (with the S&P 500 currently down 1.8% for the year) and why new housing starts have suffered a significant decline, falling 5.3% in September alone. Second, rising rates reduce the disposable incomes of average Americans. The increase in average mortgage rates from 4% to 4.9% means that the average new American homeowner will pay an additional $1,800 per year (compared to a total increase in median household income of $1,000 from 2016 to 2017). Finally, rising rates mean that the government has to pay more interest on the federal debt. By 2028, the CBO estimates that interest payments will cost 3.1% of GDP, greater than the cost of Medicaid and over four-fifths of total US military spending.
Trump’s tax cut was sold as a minimally expensive way to improve America’s long term growth trajectory. Instead, trend growth has barely moved, while the country’s ability to deal with a worsening fiscal outlook and future recessions has been harmed significantly. Looking back, however, these outcomes do not seem surprising. The US economy was close to full employment in December 2017, and US companies had had access to near-zero interest rates to finance investment for almost a decade. It is little wonder, then, that Trump’s tax cut has failed in the promises that he made to Americans.