President Donald Trump touted his administration’s impact on the U.S. economy in his first State of the Union address Tuesday evening, attributing millions of new jobs, rising wages, a lower unemployment rate and the recently signed Republican tax bill to his administration.
“Since the election, we have created 2.4 million new jobs, including 200,000 new jobs in manufacturing alone. After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages,” Trump said in his address.
“Unemployment claims have hit a 45-year low. African-American unemployment stands at the lowest rate ever recorded, and Hispanic American unemployment has also reached the lowest levels in history. Small business confidence is at an all-time high. The stock market has smashed one record after another, gaining $8 trillion in value. That is great news for Americans’ 401k, retirement, pension, and college savings accounts,” the president continued.
Trump went on to sell the many benefits of the Republican tax reform bill he signed into law in late December.
“Our massive tax cuts provide tremendous relief for the middle class and small businesses. To lower tax rates for hardworking Americans, we nearly doubled the standard deduction for everyone. Now, the first $24,000 earned by a married couple is completely tax-free. We also doubled the child tax credit,” Trump said.
“A typical family of four making $75,000 will see their tax bill reduced by $2,000 — slashing their tax bill in half. This April will be the last time you ever file under the old broken system — and millions of Americans will have more take-home pay starting next month,” the president said.
“We eliminated an especially cruel tax that fell mostly on Americans making less than $50,000 a year — forcing them to pay tremendous penalties simply because they could not afford government-ordered health plans. We repealed the core of disastrous Obamacare — the individual mandate is now gone,” Trump said. “We slashed the business tax rate from 35 percent all the way down to 21 percent, so American companies can compete and win against anyone in the world. These changes alone are estimated to increase average family income by more than $4,000.”
“Small businesses have also received a massive tax cut, and can now deduct 20 percent of their business income,” Trump said.
The president also discussed the many wage increases and bonuses that American businesses — including Apple, Walmart and American Airlines — gave their employees after Trump signed Republican’s tax bill into law.
“Since we passed tax cuts, roughly 3 million workers have already gotten tax cut bonuses — many of them thousands of dollars per worker. Apple has just announced it plans to invest a total of $350 billion in America, and hire another 20,000 workers,” Trump said. “This is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream … The era of economic surrender is over.”
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