To the Editor:

There are a lot of claims about our economy going around: “best ever,” “the world has never seen anything like this,” etc. We all will be voting soon, and it is of critical importance to deal in facts, not in political hyperbole.

Let’s stipulate that the economy was pretty good at the end of 2019 and had been moving in a positive direction for more than 10 years. To be as fair as possible, I am not using data from 2020 because the pandemic has so damaged the economy.

September 2, 2020