Rich Lowry: Trump should chill about the stock market

Donald Trump may watch the stock market more closely than any day trader.

For a president who underlined the increasing importance of working-class whites to the GOP coalition and who trampled so much bipartisan economic orthodoxy during the campaign, to be so overtly obsessed with the stock market is a strange disconnect.

In fact, no president in memory has so publicly staked himself to the market. Trump has, in contrast, paid relatively little public attention to wage growth, which is the measure that more closely tracks with his particular political project (especially considering that his election prospects may again depend on Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin).

Why the focus on the stock market? For one thing, it’s impossible to avoid. The stock market numbers run in little boxes in the bottom right-hand corner of cable-news TV screens. Big gains or drops make front-page news. The market’s performance affects how people feel about the economy on any given day.

ADVERTISEMENT
0 seconds of 0 secondsVolume 0%
Press shift question mark to access a list of keyboard shortcuts
00:00
00:00
00:00
 

On top of all this, the market clearly acts for Trump like poll numbers or TV ratings — immediate, easily digestible feedback on his perceived worth, or that of his economic stewardship.

This isn’t how he should view it, and it was shortsighted to be so boastful about the good times.

The stock market goes up and down. Trump didn’t have sole responsibility for the run-up in the market after his election (although taking the regulatory boot off the economy helped) and doesn’t deserve the blame for the downward trend now (although the contention with China and general sense of chaos don’t help).

Trump has lashed out at Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for being too tight on interest rates, and he might be right. But the president should be less beholden to the gyrations of the market.

Wages would be a worthy new object of his attention. Trump has the ability to shift the public conversation onto ground of his choosing, and it’d be better if wages didn’t often take a back seat to the stock market and GDP growth.

Trump has a story to tell here. A historically low unemployment rate is having an effect. Wages grew at a 3.1 percent rate year over year in October and November, the highest level since 2009.

When Trump hears complaints from employers that they are having trouble hiring, his answer should be: “Good. Pay your workers more.”

On the other hand, the political downside of focusing on wages is twofold: Like the stock market, it is a metric that the president doesn’t have direct control over, and unlike the stock market, it hasn’t mostly enjoyed strong upward momentum over the past couple of decades.

Oren Cass of the Manhattan Institute and author of the thought-provoking new book “The Once and Future Worker” argues that the point of comparison shouldn’t be whether wages are better than they were in post-crisis 2010, but how they are doing compared with business-cycle peaks in 2007, 2000 and 1989. Here they are lagging.

Wages are ultimately related to productivity growth, which has been growing more slowly than in the golden age of the American economy in the mid-20th century.

Robert Atkinson of the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation argues forcefully that policymakers should make fostering productivity growth their foremost goal.

For his part, Cass suggests a worker-friendly, longer-term agenda of reforming education to put more emphasis on the interests of students who won’t go on to get a four-year college degree; changing our immigration system to keep the lower end of the labor market as tight as possible; and exploring innovative models of unionization to give workers more leverage.

Maybe these particular initiatives aren’t to the liking of the White House, but a working-class Republican should have an agenda very specifically tailored to the interests of workers. Alternately bragging and complaining about the stock market isn’t a substitute.

Rich Lowry can be reached via email at comments.lowry@nationalreview.com.


• By RICH LOWRY


More in Opinion

U.S. Senator Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, speaks to Anchor Point residents during a community meeting held at the Virl “Pa” Haga VFW Post 10221 on Friday, May 30, 2025, in Anchor Point, Alaska. (Delcenia Cosman/Homer News)
Opinion: Big beautiful wins for Alaska in the Big Beautiful Bill

The legislation contains numerous provisions to unleash Alaska’s extraordinary resource economy.

Children are photographed outside their now shuttered school, Pearl Creek Elementary, in August 2024 in Fairbanks, Alaska. (Photo provided by Morgan Dulian)
My Turn: Reform doesn’t start with cuts

Legislators must hold the line for Alaska’s students

Deena Bishop, commissioner of the Department of Education and Early Development, discusses the status of school districts’ finances during a press conference with Gov. Mike Dunleavy at the Alaska State Capitol on Thursday, April 17, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire)
Opinion: The fight to improve public education has just begun

We owe our children more than what the system is currently offering

President Donald Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia at a joint news conference in Helsinki, Finland, July 16, 2018. (Doug Mills/The New York Times file photo)
Opinion: Mistaking flattery for respect

Flattery played a role in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.

(Juneau Empire file photo)
Opinion: Life is harder when you outlive your support group

Long-time friends are more important than ever to help us cope, to remind us we are not alone and that others feel the same way.

Deven Mitchell is the executive director and chief executive officer of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp. (Photo courtesy of the Alaska Permanent Fund Corp.)
Opinion: The key to a stronger fund: Diversification

Diversification is a means of stabilizing returns and mitigating risk.

A silver salmon is weighed at Three Bears in Kenai, Alaska. Evelyn McCoy, customer service PIC at Three Bears, looks on. (Photo by Jeff Helminiak/Peninsula Clarion)
Opinion: Will coho salmon be the next to disappear in the Kenai River?

Did we not learn anything from the disappearance of the kings from the Kenai River?

Jonathan Flora is a lifelong commercial fisherman and dockworker from Homer, Alaska.
Point of View: Not fishing for favors — Alaskans need basic health care access

We ask our elected officials to oppose this bill that puts our health and livelihoods in danger.

Alex Koplin. (courtesy photo)
Opinion: Public schools do much more than just teach the three Rs

Isn’t it worth spending the money to provide a quality education for each student that enters our schools?

Gov. Mike Dunleavy speaks to reporters at the Alaska State Capitol on Thursday, April 17, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire file photo)
Letter to the Editor: Law enforcement officers helped ensure smooth, secure energy conference

Their visible commitment to public safety allowed attendees to focus fully on collaboration, learning, and the important conversations shaping our path forward.

Laurie Craig / Juneau Empire file photo
The present-day KTOO public broadcasting building, built in 1959 for the U.S. Army’s Alaska Communications System Signal Corps, is located on filled tidelands near Juneau’s subport. Today vehicles on Egan Drive pass by the concrete structure with satellite dishes on the roof that receive signals from NPR, PBS and other sources.
My Turn: Stand for the community radio, not culture war optics

Alaskans are different and we pride ourselves on that. If my vehicle… Continue reading

U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska) delivers his annual speech to the Alaska Legislature on Thursday, March 20, 2025. (Jasz Garrett / Juneau Empire file photo)
Opinion: Sullivan, Trump and the rule of lawlessness

In September 2023, U.S. Sen. Dan Sullivan established his own Alaska Federal… Continue reading