Are Americans Better or Worse Off Since January (2025)?

[Stryder50]

A recent The Epoch Times opinion piece.
Victor Davis Hansen is an established and respected historian, and as any who really study history know, this is a subject area where one has to be a "Master of Many Trades" in that some general knowledge of many subjects helps in fitting the historical pieces together and providing context and perspective. VDH does an excellent job of this.
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Victor Davis Hanson
Author
Victor Davis Hanson is a classicist and military historian. He is a professor emeritus of classics at California State University, a senior fellow in classics and military history at Stanford University, a fellow of Hillsdale College, and a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness. Mr. Hanson has written 17 books, including “The Western Way of War,” “Fields Without Dreams,” “The Case for Trump,” and “The Dying Citizen.”
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Are Americans Better or Worse Off Since January?​

11/7/2025|Updated: 11/11/2025

The left wing and media rage hysterically from one President Donald Trump psychodrama to the next, while Trump trolls both on social media.

But all that is verbiage. What matters are the data and facts of Trump’s first nine months since Jan. 20, 2025, in comparison to either former President Joe Biden’s previous year or the averages of his four years in office.


Take the border. No one knows how many illegal aliens entered or stayed in the United States during Biden’s four years of open borders. What is clear is that he set a presidential record of more than 7 million illegal entrants.

The border under Trump is now tightly closed. Before his administration, it was common for 10,000 people to cross illegally in a single day. In just nine months, approximately 2 million illegal aliens have been deported or self-deported. The rate of border crossings is now the lowest it’s ever been since 1970.
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Are Americans Better or Worse Off Since January?

www.theepochtimes.com

Our border was definitely way too open under Biden and too many dangerous persons were able to enter our country and then go into seclusion. We now have too many buried threats and foreign agents who mean harm to the USA.

 

[Meister]

I would say that real Americans are better off now than prior to 2025.
The biggest drawback that I've witnessed is the spike with those afflicted
with Trump Derangement Syndrome.

 

[1srelluc]

Everyone is better off when the vile dems are out of power.

The trouble is we have to spend a shit-ton of money to fix what the vile dems fucked-up.

 

[Stryder50]

...
How about energy? For Trump’s first nine months, gas prices have averaged $3.19 versus Biden’s 2024 average of $3.30 per gallon. Over Biden’s four years, gas averaged $3.46 per gallon.

During the Biden years, oil production averaged 12.3 million barrels per day, compared with 13.5 million barrels during Trump’s first nine months. Biden removed 200 million barrels from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, leaving office with only 394 million barrels in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

The reserve has already inched upward under Trump’s initial months to 406 million barrels. Releases have been canceled. Purchases of replacement oil have been scheduled.

Are Americans Better or Worse Off Since January?

www.theepochtimes.com

...
We need to have a diverse mix of sources for energy, in order to have enough back-up and versatility.
Petroleum ("oil") is a major raw material source for most of our synthetic products and hence we should look for affordable ways to reduce it's use as a fuel, find replacements.

 

[Crepitus]

Everyone is better off when the vile dems are out of power.

The trouble is we have to spend a shit-ton of money to fix what the vile dems fucked-up.

Then why does every republican administration end in a recession?

 

[Stryder50]

...
Regarding the economy, Biden’s four years averaged 2.9 percent gross domestic product (GDP) growth per annum.

Trump’s GDP rose by 3.8 percent in the second quarter, with final estimates for 2025 at about 3 percent.

Inflation under Trump so far averages about 3 percent. Under Biden’s tenure, inflation increased by 21.4 percent over four years, or on average by about 5.3 percent per year.
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Are Americans Better or Worse Off Since January?

www.theepochtimes.com

Numbers speak quite plainly.

Working to correct past four years is essential. However we need to start to take bite by bite out of the decades old build up of Deficit and Debt.

 

[Stryder50]

Then why does every republican administration end in a recession?

Why does every Democrat administration grow Deficit and Debt and reduce our Defense?

 

[1srelluc]

Then why does every republican administration end in a recession?

I can't predict the future but I'm doing fine now. We would be doing even better without your vile ilk in the way.

 

[Crepitus]

Why does every Democrat administration grow Deficit and Debt and reduce our Defense?

That's also every republican administration so kind of a moot point.

 

[Stryder50]

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How about U.S. deterrence and defense?

Under Biden, the military fell short by approximately 15,000 recruits per year, crashing to a shortfall of 41,000 in 2023.

Following Trump’s election and throughout the first nine months of 2025, all branches of the military met or exceeded their recruitment goals.

The number of NATO nations meeting their promise to spend 2 percent of GDP on defense rose from 23 in 2024 to a likely total of 31 in 2025, with several pledging to spend as much as 5 percent.

Trump left office in 2021 with no major ongoing wars. His first administration had nearly bankrupted Iran, destroyed the ISIS terrorist group, decimated the Russian Wagner Group in Syria, and birthed the Abraham Accords.
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Are Americans Better or Worse Off Since January?

www.theepochtimes.com

 

[Crepitus]

I can't predict the future but I'm doing fine now. We would be doing even better without your vile ilk in the way.

How were you doing in 2008?

How about 2020?

 

[Stryder50]

That's also every republican administration so kind of a moot point.

Except the Democrats damage other programs and needs also, which the Republicans have to repair, paying for such again, when wouldn't need to if the dimbocrats hadn't fugged things up.

 

[Stryder50]

...
Under Biden, the Middle East exploded into a four-front war against Israel.

Iran boasted that it was within months of developing nuclear weapons after the Biden administration lifted previous Trump sanctions and courted Tehran to return to the so-called Iran deal.

Over the past decade and a half, Russian President Vladimir Putin had only kept within his borders during Trump’s first term, invading neighboring countries during the presidencies of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Biden.

In 2022, Putin attacked Kyiv during Biden’s second year in office, leading to a full-scale Ukrainian–Russian war that has incurred the greatest combat losses in Europe since World War II.

In August 2021, in one of the greatest military humiliations in U.S. history, Biden ordered the abrupt flight of all U.S. personnel from Kabul, Afghanistan. The skedaddle resulted in utter chaos, the deaths of 13 Marines, and the destruction of U.S. deterrence.

Thousands of U.S. contractors and employees were left behind and the administration abandoned billions of dollars of new weapons and military equipment to the Taliban.
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Are Americans Better or Worse Off Since January?

www.theepochtimes.com

 

[Stryder50]

...
In contrast, there is now a tentative calm across the Middle East. After Trump’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities, the theocracy is not expected to be able to acquire a nuclear weapon for years.

Iran, the Hezbollah terrorist group, the Hamas terrorist group, and the Houthi terrorist group are decimated and increasingly impotent.

No wars broke out during Trump’s current year. Tentative Trump-inspired cease-fires helped stop violence between India and Pakistan, Cambodia and Thailand, Egypt and Ethiopia, Serbia and Kosovo, and Armenia and Azerbaijan.
...

Are Americans Better or Worse Off Since January?

www.theepochtimes.com

 

[Superbadbrutha]

I would say that real Americans are better off now than prior to 2025.
The biggest drawback that I've witnessed is the spike with those afflicted
with Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Who are REAL Americans?

 

[Stryder50]

...
Trump’s tariffs so far have not caused, as critics predicted, a recession or stock collapse. Instead, the stock market has reached all-time highs.

Trillions of dollars in promised foreign investments in the United States have set a record. And China, for the first time in 50 years, is facing a U.S.-led global pushback against its exploitative, mercantilist trade policies.
...

Are Americans Better or Worse Off Since January?

www.theepochtimes.com

 

[Stryder50]

...
The left is outraged about many of Trump’s executive orders.

But the public largely supports destroying the cartels’ seaborne drug shipments bound for the United States. Polls show that majorities favor banning transgender males from female sports; ending diversity, equity, and inclusion racialist fixations; and enacting long overdue higher education reforms.

The daily news is about politicians’ f-bombs, government shutdowns, Trump’s social media trolling, and street violence. But the facts tell a different story of national recovery from the self-inflicted disasters of the recent past.
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Are Americans Better or Worse Off Since January?

www.theepochtimes.com

 

[Stryder50]

Who are REAL Americans?

Those who have legal citizenship and are actively building up our nation, creating wealth, obeying our laws, and promoting our Constitutional principles and Human Rights.
In the process setting an example for other nations to follow and copy.

Better other nations improve to match what we have here than shed their people they neglect upon our shores, across our borders.

 

[Meister]

Who are REAL Americans?

Those that aren't the base of either side.

 

[OhPleaseJustQuit]

I would say that real Americans are better off now than prior to 2025.
The biggest drawback that I've witnessed is the spike with those afflicted
with Trump Derangement Syndrome.

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I sure am. I filled up for $2.56 per gallon yesterday.

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