Throughout his presidential campaign, Donald J. Trump has pledged to put “America first,” suggesting that the country’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants should be deported and flatly rejecting the concept of globalism. But because of the potential economic consequences of these stances, a group of business economists is now flatly rejecting him.
A policy survey of National Association for Business Economics (NABE) members released Monday shows that 55% of business economists feel that former Secretary of State Hillary Clintonwould do the best job as president of managing the U.S. economy. The candidate with the next-largest percentage of the vote was Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson: 15% of NABE members said he’d do the best job managing the economy. Another 15% or respondents said they didn’t know who would be best or that they didn’t have an opinion.
Just 14% chose Donald Trump.
The survey results are remarkable because NABE members aren’t your average ivory tower-dwelling, left-leaning egg heads. They work for businesses, trade associations and government agencies across the country. As NABE director and survey chair LaVaughn Henry put it, these are people who have skin in the game.
“You’re speaking of people who advise business leaders on day-to-day and long term issues where the outcome has to be one way or the other, it can’t just be, ‘let’s study it or research it forever,’” he told FORBES in a recent interview. “These are people who are actually helping to make decisions of do we produce here, or do we produce oversees; do we consume more, consume less.”
Henry posited that one of the reasons a group of conservative-to-moderate business economists overwhelmingly chose Clinton over Trump is that “a definitive plan has been out there for months to stew over and study and make decisions about. It’s one thing to say, ‘this is my plan, A-B-C-D,’ versus, ‘just trust me.
It’s not just Trump the candidate that failed to gain traction with the 414 members NABE polled; it’s many of his ideas. On immigration, just 8% of respondents said they favor deportation of all undocumented immigrants (a keystone Trump policy); 80%, meanwhile, said they believe the government should expand visa programs, like the H-1B program, for high-skilled workers, and 64% said they favored a legalization process for undocumented immigrants currently living in the U.S. When asked broadly how the next administration and Congress should be towards immigration, 61% of NABE members said the government should be more relaxed as to allow for increased immigration.
On issues of trade, 65% of NABE members say the next presidential administration should be more open and free; Trump, meanwhile, has offered a more protectionist vision for the future. Forty-seven percent of business economists said the U.S. should approve the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement in its current form and other 30% said the U.S. should seek more favorable terms first and then adopt the pact; Trump has called the TPP “a horrible deal. It is a deal that is going to lead to nothing but trouble.”
Henry said that NABE members fundamentally disagree with that view. “Business economists recognize value of trade to the economy,” he said. “The Pacific Asian theatre is so growth-oriented and will be for decades that we shouldn’t cut off our hand before we put it in the pot.” That said, he understands why the TPP has become such a big issue this election cycle. “When you don’t have a job because of trade, unemployment to you is 100%,” he said.
The August 2016 survey marks the first time since 1992 that NABE directly asked its members about their presidential preferences. Back then, 59.5% said that then-president George H.W. Bush’s policies would be better for maintaining stable growth – but they also (correctly) predicted that Bill Clintonwould win the election.
By NABE’s own estimation, the only other two times presidential politics factored into an economic outlook survey was 2004 (when members said they wouldn’t change their economic forecasts whether George Bush or John Kerry were elected) and 2008, when respondents similarly said that the election’s victor would not materially affect GDP growth over the coming two years.
The August 2016 economic policy study is not the first time Trump and Clinton’s economic plans have come under economists’ scrutiny. A pair of analyses from Moody’s recently found that Trump’s proposals could potentially raise the deficit and hurt GDP growth, while Clinton’s had the potential to spur economic growth and lower unemployment.
Whether or not Trump is elected, the damage might already be done: 62% of NABE respondents said that uncertainty about the presidential election is holding back economic growth somewhat or significantly.
“Any introduction of increased risk, increased uncertainty, questions of ‘will I have a job next year, or will I not?’ really does factor into people’s buying decisions. You see these broad groups pulling back, saying ‘let’s just wait to spend, let’s see where things go,’” Henry said. “Our survey didn’t say it, but others have said, if one of the candidates wins, we may be in for a recession. I won’t say who, I won’t name names, but people are saying. Many people are saying.”
