LARRY KUDLOW: Trumponomics is working, as a midterm victory comes into sight

Plenty of good economic news this week, with an outsize gain in jobs, especially private sector jobs. And a much lower-than-expected report on consumer prices.

All this with a stock market hovering near 50,000 amidst booming productivity, low energy prices, and a more than trillion dollar deregulation at EPA. And even a Gallup poll showing a 49-36% rebound in economic confidence.

So you sort of have to wonder why the Wall Street Journal runs an editorial that ‘America is Running out of Patience with Republicans’. 

If there ever was a real affordability issue, right now the Trump Economy is crushing it.

The latest reading from the strong January jobs report showed production workers getting an increase in pay and working more hours. What some economists, including myself, call the wage income proxy, which is hourly earnings times hours worked, jumped in January to 5.6% at an annual rate over the past three months.

Meanwhile, today’s CPI inflation report showed a 2.4% rise over the past three months, so that gives you a 3.2% real wage take-home pay number.  

Let me do it again: 5.6% on wages and hours worked, against only a 2.4% three-month CPI change.

Trumponomics is delivering. 

And the workforce is earning their pay hikes with a tremendous productivity run, and businesses remain very profitable with only a 1.1% increase in unit labor costs.

Technology is booming, demand for power is booming. President Trump is taking the shackles off oil, gas, and coal, so-called baseload energy, by getting rid of the Obama-Biden endangerment finding that was never put into law anyway. So average autos can probably come in somewhere around $2,400 cheaper. Scoring another for the middle class.

Factory construction is booming. It was one of the strongest parts in the January jobs report. And some of that can be directly traced to the President’s tariff-driven reciprocal trade policy.

Plus, 100% immediate depreciation write-offs, creating a huge business capital goods boom, where new investment means stronger employment and wages, and eventually consumer spending power.

While it may be true, as President Trump told me this week, that he and his team have to work harder to get the message out, the fact is the numbers are on his side.

And editorialists who dwell on tired old left-wing Biden-esque criticisms, should really just give it up.

Trumponomics is working, and a midterm election victory for Republicans is very much in sight.