Fact Check: Pete Buttigieg Falsely Says Trump Economy Not Helping the Poor

Democratic presidential candidate South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg speaks during a c
Charlie Neibergall/AP Photo

CLAIM: Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, claimed that President Donald Trump’s “Buy American, Hire American” economy is not helping lift the poorest of Americans out of poverty.

VERDICT: This claim, though, is false as millions of Americans have been able to get off of food stamps thanks to Trump’s roaring economy, and wages have increased the most for the bottom 25 percent of American workers in the workforce.

“The problem is we’ve had an economy grow and not been able to lift up those most in need or even so many in the middle,” Buttigieg said. “When I’m president, we’re going to measure the performance of our economy not by the Dow Jones, but by the income growth of the 90 percent.”

Buttigieg failed to mention that since Trump took office in 2017, more than 2.4 million American families and more than 5.9 million individual Americans have been lifted off of food stamps.

Likewise, in terms of personal income for America’s working poor, working-class, and lower middle class, wages have grown the most — increasing 4.5 percent year-to-year for the bottom 25 percent of America’s workforce.

Unlike Buttigieg’s plan to import more foreign workers to compete against America’s working-class for U.S. jobs, Trump has continued to tighten the labor market through increased interior immigration enforcement.

John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.

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