SMOKING GUN
AMERICAN CARNAGE: AN INDEX Here are some metrics of the United States after four years of Donald Trump:
Unemployment rate in January 2017, when Trump took office: 4.8 percent. Unemployment rate in April 2020: 14.7 percent. Number of Americans who were behind in their rent, as of mid-September: 8.3 million. Number of Americans who lacked health insurance in 2019: 29.6 million, or 9.2 percent of the population. Number of Americans who lost jobs with employer-sponsored health insurance as of June 2020: 7.7 million, and 6.9 million dependents. Increase in wealth by U.S. billionaires in first six months of 2020: $845 billion, up 29 percent. Increase in the number of Americans living in poverty since March: 8 million. Personal wealth of top 1 percent of U.S. population: $34.23 trillion. Personal wealth of bottom 50 percent of U.S. population: $2.08 trillion. Number of Americans who reported in September 2020 that they lost work because the pandemic made their employer lose business or close down: 19.4 million. Number of Americans who said in August that there were times during the last week when they did not have enough to eat: 22.3 million. Amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as of September 2020 (350 ppm is the oft-stated upper limit): 411.29 ppm. Amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide in 2016, before Trump took office: 402.25 ppm. Number of guns purchased in the United States from March through September: 15.1 million, a 91 percent increase from the same period in 2019. Federal deficit in fiscal year 2016, before Trump took office: $587 billion. Federal deficit in fiscal year 2020: $3.1 trillion. Number of death sentences carried out after Trump lifted the ban on federal executions: Six, which is more than the combined total of all of the President’s predecessors since 1963. Number of incarcerated people who’ve died from COVID-19, as of November 13: 1,412. Number of deaths from the 2016-17 flu season: 38,000. Number of deaths from COVID-19, which Trump has said is just like the flu, as of November 16: 246,586.
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